


Almighty Engine, Infernal Thunder

by mabus101



Series: Six-Metal Superheroes [1]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Exalted
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, diverges after Buffy S5, inter-canon ships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-04-07 23:46:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 26
Words: 157,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4282572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mabus101/pseuds/mabus101
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Buffy falls into the dimensional rift opened by the Key, she finds herself in another world known as Creation, to which she is not as much a stranger as she thinks.  The Slayer essence proves to be something more powerful than she ever suspected--and far more dangerous, as well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Where in the Hell is Carmen Sandiego?

The stink was overpowering, a miasma of blood and rotten guts. Giles held the cloth to his nose. How the vampires endured it he couldn't tell, unless they were only pretending disgust now.  
_This was not what I came here to find._  
The air of the hut blanketed him, close and barely breathable in the heat. He'd failed to keep the others out of the sickroom, but it was plain now that there was no danger. The locals called the illness "Final Viridescence", but he recognized it under a different name: radiation sickness. How she'd been exposed in this primitive hell was beyond him, but the girl dying in the bed must have taken a truly massive dose. Only a few scattered clumps of hair remained on her bloody scalp. Her eyes were clouded white beyond any hope of vision. She whimpered with delirium.  
Others in the room were whimpering as well, and Giles was unsure that his voice was not among them.  
_I came here to rescue Buffy._  
The girl on the filthy straw mattress thrashed feverishly, trickles of blood and offal issuing from every orifice. Mewling pitifully, she clawed at her unseeing eyes as if trying to pull away a veil.  
_How could I have failed so utterly?_  
Another layer of skin peeled away from Buffy's blotched and bleeding face, and Rupert Giles, Watcher, averted his eyes.  
"She's far beyond our help. I'm sorry."  
*****  
She fell into the radiance.  
And through it.  
And kept falling. There was ground rushing up to meet her, a great green-brown monolith of a mountain, and plainly her first few moments in some hell dimension were going to be her last, because that thing was going to batter her to pieces long before she stopped rolling. Thunder blasted her ears and light seared her eyes. She couldn't recall what terminal velocity was, but she was pretty sure she'd reached it and it was going to be terminal all right.  
A speck was moving below her, rushing up even faster than the mountain. Could it be a bird? A plane? No, nor was it Superman. It was a boat, somehow sailing through empty sky. Buffy envied it. It was evidently not going to dash itself on the rocks below, though for the life of her she couldn't figure out how. Shame, that. Say, was it coming toward her?  
She hit the sails first, barely feeling them rip as they tried and failed to slow her passage. Her arm struck a jutting mast, sending her spinning, her legs flailing, ripping down the mainsail as she went. She crashed down onto, into, through the deck, shattering planks like straw. A second deck. Then she struck something that felt softer, say on the level of hitting a pile of gravel, rolled a few times, and was still.  
Buffy was lying in a pile of grain spilling from some broken barrels. She didn't try to get up. The notion that there could be a bone in her body that wasn't broken was fundamentally absurd. Shouts rang through the impossible ship, above and below her, and she could hear people scurrying closer. They'd probably throw her overboard to resume her fall.  
A man in a ridiculous pirate hat strolled up from somewhere above her head--she was lying on her back, she supposed; talk about being disoriented--and put his hands on his hips. "They told me someone would meet me above the Blessed Isle," he said flamboyantly, "but this is truly absurd." And he burst into laughter. "Why not? Is there anything in Creation that isn't?"  
"If you're done impersonating Jack Sparrow," Buffy managed, "I think I might still be alive. Is there a doctor in the house?"  
The pirate laughed louder. "Oh, no worries, my fine young lady. I guarantee you'll be well in a matter of weeks. Trust me, you are so very much alive. The mistress would hardly have it otherwise." Shaking his head derisively, he kicked her in the shoulder, which proved to be too bruised to hurt any worse than it already did. "Did you have to wreck so much of my vessel getting here?"  
She gritted her teeth and forced a grin onto her face. "Falling out of the sky tends to do that, sorry."  
"True enough. I don't suppose you could tell me how you came to be plummeting from the heavens?" The man removed his hat. "Captain Gyrfalcon, in no way at your service but required to assist you somewhat."  
Buffy tried to move and found that her left arm, at least, was somehow intact. "I would if i could, but I can't, so I won't. Please forgive me if I don't." Where did that jingle come from? "If you're going to assist me, could you at least get me into a nice comfy chair so I can stop lying around in your cargo hold?" The captain chuckled and gestured to a couple of men on either side of him, who seized her by the arms. Spikes of pain shot through her as they hauled her half-upright--were they crazy? her spine was probably shattered--and dragged her from the wreckage.  
"Don't worry," Gyrfalcon shouted after her. "She says they have plans for you that don't involve dying. Yet." He bowed deeply. "Get well soon, little birdie, and maybe we'll find your nest and put you back in it."  
She was so going to wring his neck.  
*****  
"We have to get her out of here."  
Giles released a pained sigh. "Xander, I mean Buffy no disrespect, but she will surely be dead in a matter of hours. Her pursuers can do her no further harm. I am deeply sorry, but we must go, or they will find us here with her."  
"Giles!"  
"Willow, that is the reality of the situation. I will say it again: I am so sorry that we must leave her." Buffy's pitiful keening rose slightly in volume, and he turned slightly to see a clawlike hand outstretched in his direction. "Oh damn. Buffy, do you understand me?" Was that the faintest nod of her head?  
Fred took up the bloody cloth soaking in the basin and began to mop Buffy's forehead gently. "Giles, she's so far gone her internal organs are practically liquefying. Moving her will probably kill her even faster anyway." He nodded acknowledgement. "We can't do anything for her." Yet there was that outstretched hand....  
"Willow, Xander, get some blankets. Fred, Gunn--find planking of some sort. We're going to make a litter. Spike, Angel--yes, yes, I know--you two carry her. Cordelia, Wesley, Dawn, search this place from top to bottom for any medicines that might make her more comfortable."  
Wesley gave him a pained look. "What should I do, then?" Giles muttered to him. "Follow Watcher tradition and smother her with the pillow? She'll be dead before long no matter what we do. At least let her die in the company of her friends." Wesley threw up his hands and began rattling his way up the rickety stairs.  
Giles enfolded Buffy's hand in one of his. He could feel nothing familiar in it besides bones and papery skin. The very flesh of her arm seemed to have gone to mush. The poor girl was already rotting where she lay. Again that pitiful excuse for a sound issued from her, and Giles tipped up the bloody basin and trickled water over her cracked lips. What had she to fear, after all? He searched feebly for some apology that might reach her. "I tried," was all he could find before his throat seized.  
*****  
Falling. Falling forever through rings of light.  
Buffy lurched to a sitting position. She felt none of the sensation of movement there had been on the flying boat, and this bed was made of silken sheets and feather pillows. Though she ached everywhere, she felt none of the searing pain that should have resulted from broken bones. How could she not have broken bones? True, she'd been hit by cars and punched through walls--most recently by Glory--but surely not even Glorificus could pack the wallop of falling out of the sky. Had she been out cold that long?  
"One day," came a soft call from somewhere in the room. Buffy peered through the darkness and made out a young woman sitting in front of a mirror, combing out her jet black hair as if she could see what she was doing in the dark. Well, Buffy could; perhaps she could too. "You've been unconscious for one day. After literally falling out of the sky. There's promise in that. Still, most Slayers could do so well."  
"Most...Slayers?" Buffy saw no point in pretending. Anyone who knew the name probably knew more, enough that hiding what she was would only waste time. "You've known other Slayers?"  
The woman turned to face her, quirking an eyebrow upward. "I've met all ten of those currently alive, and several dead ones. They do tend to be on the front lines."  
"All...what? I'm sorry, I think I got hit on the head a few time on the way down." Ten Slayers alive? That made no sense, unless this lady meant something entirely different after all. But she clearly meant a warrior of some kind.  
"Forgive me. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Nellens Cyan, and you are in my townhouse. I had the good captain bring you here." Nellens paused expectantly, as if Buffy should recognize her. Buffy shrugged.  
"Buffy Summers, Ms. Cyan. I'm sorry, but I haven't the foggiest. Everything is so off-kilter I might as well be in gymnastics practice." She began to work out some of the kinks in her bruised muscles.  
"Please, Buffy...just Cyan, to you. Nellens is my family name. I am what is known in the Empire as a Dynast. Clearly you have come a long way. It pleases me to offer my hospitality to another of the Exalted."  
"Ex...alted?" Cyan frowned for a moment, then nodded. "If you say so. I hate to say it, but I think we're going to have to start from the beginning here."  
The tip of Cyan's tongue flicked along her lips. "From the beginning, you say. Well, in that case...I suppose we shall."  
*****  
"What kind of sickhouse has an escape tunnel?" Fred poked experimentally at the support beams. A little dust fell from the ceiling, but the beams didn't so much as creak.  
"One meant to hide evacuees," Wesley put in. "Perhaps even one secondary to the evacuation."  
"If it's part of an underground railroad," Gunn wondered, "who's it for? There sure ain't much attempt to free any slaves going on here."  
Angel and Spike made their way down into the tunnel, carrying the makeshift litter to which Buffy was tied. She seemed to have lapsed into unconsciousness. Giles hoped they hadn't made even more of a mistake than he believed; her death might be a matter of minutes rather than hours.  
Willow was next down. "Guys, we gotta move. People on horseback are headed straight for this place, and I don't think they're EMTs."  
"How far off?" Wesley peered down the tunnel, waving his torch about.  
"Minutes," Cordelia said, not bothering with the ladder. "If we don't get this trap door sealed up in five we aren't gonna get away."  
Tara swung Dawn down before dropping down herself. "Maybe Willow and I should stay behind and try to hold them off." Willow winced, but nodded.  
"No," Xander said quietly. "And it's not about chivalry. I've been the fifth wheel ever since we got here. The only one who's more dead weight in this place than I am is Buffy. I'll stay behind, try to distract them. If I somehow manage to convince them it's clear, I'll come after you. If not...well, I hate to say it but you're not losing much."  
"Xander, no!" Anya halted when Xander pulled up his shirt, revealing the infection spreading from the wound in his side.  
"Go on without me while you have time." He leaned down and kissed Anya on the head, then pulled up the ladder behind him.  
Willow's face crumpled as if she was about to cry...then her expression firmed. "We have to honor his sacrifice. Get going. Now!"  
*****  
Where was she? Buffy darted around the pillars, searching through the maze for Cyan. The angles of this place were all wrong, but this maze of rounded columns ought to be largely immune to that problem. Still no sign of her.  
The faintest rush of air caught her attention as Cyan dropped from one of the pillars, knife raised. Buffy spun away, but the blade still scored along her ribs. "You can do better," Cyan sneered, and vanished into the shadows again. One by one the torches began going out, plunging the maze into darkness.  
Buffy shrugged. This, at least, was one obstacle she had no trouble with. She did most of her work by starlight, if that. This time the knife came flying through the air at her, as much sensed as seen, and she stepped aside without difficulty. "Better." Cyan's voice echoed through the columns, impossible to localize. The torches were still going out, spreading the darkness until the nearest flicker of light was hundreds of yards away. "At least you know Witness to Darkness," Cyan murmured. "Still, you don't even know what you are. What's to come. You've hardly begun." And a second knife scored along her ribs. This time, a line of green flame flared along what would have been just a scratch. "I don't expect perfect defenses from you, not yet, but you should have been able to evade that. What is it you've been fighting, anyway? Mortals? Mindless zombies?"  
"I fight _vampires_ ," Buffy emphasized. She could do this. The maze blocked her vision in the dark or in the light, so she closed her eyes. She'd fought invisible opponents before. Footsteps. Rustling clothes. Whispered breath. A faint hint of wrongness--there! She performed a flawless sweep-kick and connected, bowling Cyan over. "I fight demons. And yeah, the occasional mortal. Oh, and lately there was this god...."  
"A god." Buffy could almost hear Cyan's eyes roll. "You were made to fight and kill beings that are to the gods as gods are to mortals. At least you know some defensive charms. That knife wound should have slowed you a little, yet it did nothing. Either your Hardened Devil Body is stronger than I realized, or you know By Agony Empowered. Perhaps both, given that you survived your fall. Still. Do you sleep?"  
"Not much," Buffy said, scanning the room. She threw a punch, but Cyan evaded it with ease. "Less and less time for it. I still like to get a few winks. Oh, and I see the future in my dreams sometimes." A second punch collided with a column, and she had to dance aside before Cyan tripped her up. The pillar shook, and bits of stone sprayed.  
"Stop trying to hit me and hit me!" Buffy thought to suppress a laugh, thought better of it, and let the snickers out. "Do you have any idea what that should have done? Even to a stone pillar?" Another knife came at Buffy. This one she grabbed from the air. "I don't know any charm for seeing the future, but perhaps you know a little thaumaturgy."  
"What should it have done?" Buffy flung the knife back at Cyan and heard it connect with a meaty thunk. That, at least, she was more than good at. Cyan pried the knife out of the hand she'd thrown in front of her face with a contemptuous sneer.  
"You must know Nightmare Fugue Vigilance, even if you don't use it to its full potential. I suppose if you see the future in dreams it makes sense." She vanished into the maze again. "You could have demolished that pillar with a single blow. That knife could have gone right through my hand and into my eyes."  
Buffy blinked. "We're sparring. I'm not trying to kill you!" She had broken stone pillars before.  
Cyan let out with a groan. "Well, try then! I call this Shadowfire Venom. If you were a mortal, you'd surely die of it." She flung two more knives at Buffy, who dodged without any real difficulty, only to run headlong into Cyan as she flung _herself_. A third knife scored along her arm with another burst of green fire--and something else, a bone-deep numbing pain that sank into her arm and gave her a moment of dizziness. Cyan just sighed as each of them picked herself up. "Well, again...you're not dead yet. I can't believe I'm saddled with such a pathetic excuse for a Slayer, though. Maybe you're not the one prophesied after all. Kejak would love to have played such a trick on us."  
"Prophecy?" Buffy could tell she was hurt, though not that badly. She chose not to let it slow her down and slipped behind a column. Two could play at that game. A deep black circle had appeared on Cyan's forehead, like a baleful third eye. "I have a tendency to be prophecy girl. What's that nasty mole on your face?"  
Cyan facepalmed. "You've never even flared your caste mark? Bloody hell. No wonder you're nothing. A Slayer should have long ago wiped the floor with me." She shook her head and took on a lecturing tone. "Seven days ago, Sacheverelli sat bolt upright. I don't expect you to understand the significance of that, at least. I saw it happen, and it was absolute terror, because Sacheverelli sees only the truth. So long as he dreams, though, he sees only the past and present. If he were ever to wake, he would see the future, and you could kiss your free will goodbye. It took all that Lucien and the Ebon Dragon together could do to soothe him back to sleep, but as he drifted off, he murmured a few words. That a Slayer would fall from the sky. That the Chosen of the gods would not know her. That all the forces of the Realm would not stop her. And that she would open the mouth of hell and set the Yozis free."  
"And you believed this Matchabelli demon?" Buffy kept her voice level. Free the Old Ones? It had to be someone else. But she was a Slayer, even if not in the sense that Cyan seemed to think, and she had fallen from the sky.  
Cyan stalked after her. It was getting easier to track her movements the harder Buffy tried. "Sacheverelli is no mere _demon_. Not even a Third Circle. He is one of the Yozis and his power is unimaginable. I don't believe you're the one. I think Kejak planted you somehow as a distraction. Because whatever you are, you are no Exalt, Infernal or otherwise. The idea of _you_ freeing the Yozis is laughable. The Ebon Dragon thought I should prepare you, but whether the prophesied Slayer is prepared or not, she _will_ free them. Sacheverelli saw it happen. And you, I think I will finish off now."  
"Not gonna happen. Because whatever you think I am, I _am_ the Slayer. I have the power. I stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness, Cyan, and I kick their asses. That's what I do. That's what I am. It's a thing." She slipped to the side, and astonishingly enough Cyan didn't seem to notice as she readied more knives. Buffy's arm hurt, still, but she couldn't let that stop her.  
Cyan flung a knife into the darkness. Far off to the left. And Buffy lunged for her. This fight had gone on for too long. Now she was going to end it, even if she had to kill the woman--who after all was trying to free the Old Ones as certainly as the Master had been.  
At the last moment Cyan seemed to notice her and slid aside. Buffy's full-strength blow slammed into the column behind her. This time it _did_ shatter, flinging bits of stone everywhere, and Buffy heard a snort of grudging approval as the woman slipped into the maze. No. Not this time.  
Buffy struck again, this time driving her fist into a pillar on purpose. And again. And again. Gravel scattered like falling snowflakes. Tumbling columns slammed into more columns, knocking them aside. The maze began to crumble, and Buffy counted her blessings that that was all it was; none of the pillars seemed to actually support anything. "I hope you know I hate killing _people_. It puts me in a bad mood. But if you give me enough of a reason, like freeing the Old Ones? I'll do it."  
"Then you're killing the wrong person," Cyan sneered. "It may not be you, but it sure as hell isn't me. Not that I won't help, mind, if it gets me ahead." She lashed out with the knife in her left hand, and Buffy danced aside. She couldn't afford another cut like that last one. The knife dug deep into one of the fallen pillars, metal cutting through stone like butter.  
This was her chance. Cyan made the mistake of trying to yank the knife free, and Buffy brought both fists down on her back like a hammer. The other woman seemed to realize her error too late...or not. Buffy's hands passed through her like tarry smoke and plunged into the ground as she overbalanced. She turned the motion into a roll, ripping her hands free, and cartwheeled through the debris, coming up with a good five feet of pillar in her hands. "Slip away from _this_ , Aquamarine." She swung the thing like a bat with all her strength.  
Another three pillars erupted into bits of stone as Cyan faded back, looking startled. Something stung on Buffy's forehead as if a burning ember from one of the torches had landed there. Maybe it had; they hadn't been put out that long ago. Buffy brought the pillar down, shattering it at Cyan's feet as she skipped nimbly back. The burning sensation was growing worse; she stopped to brush at her forehead but could find nothing to dislodge. "Hey, didn't you say you wanted me to hit you?" And she threw herself forward.  
Her first blow shattered the woman's left arm--she seemed to favor that one--but Buffy kept pummeling her, one full-strength blow after another. She felt ribs give way, felt a femur crack, and suddenly Cyan turned to smoke again, materializing on the ground a few feet away. Laughing, almost wildly. Literally rolling on the floor as if being beaten to death was the funniest thing that had ever happened to her. Green light kept glinting in Buffy's eyes, though she couldn't see where it was coming from. Her forehead was still burning, though the pain had ceased to matter. "What the hell? You haven't even heard the one about the three vampires who walk into a bar yet."  
"I thought...I thought you were a decoy. I thought we'd been played, you silly little girl. From the beginning, I thought you were a fluke; I'd never seen a Slayer look like a secondary student. And then the pitiful fight you put up at first. I lost faith in you entirely. Yet you simply didn't know. I suppose nothing has ever given you a fight worth speaking of. And now this. I bring you in to train, to spar with...and this."  
Buffy wanted to protest: she had fought bigger bads than this woman. But then, only Angelus and Glory had ever taken anything resembling her full strength. Her last fight with Angelus had been interrupted, and fighting Glory had been hampered by the need to keep Dawn safe; more than anything she'd just had to run. The Master had been taken down by surprise, the Mayor by explosives, and Adam by an ancient spell. "I'm not...I can't be what you think I am."  
"Then you're the best practical joke I've ever seen, Buffy. Maybe you are anyway." She produced a small brass mirror from her pocket. "Look at yourself."  
*****  
The cavern was little more than a tunnel, supported here and there with wooden struts, and unexpectedly tended upwards into the hills. Giles wasn't sure he felt too much safer emerging from its mouth until Fred spotted the lever jutting from the rock face near the door. She gave no warning before pulling it. Something deep in the cavern cracked like a gunshot, and the earth shook for a few moments.  
"Well, that was effective," Fred said brightly. "No one will come after us now."  
"Not that way, at least," Gunn said.  
Anya sadly queried, "What about Xander? We left him back there!"  
"If he can join us," Willow mumbled, "he will." She knew, of course. Xander was likely already dead.  
Angel and Spike carried Buffy forward to the lip of the cavern and set her down facing the faint moonlight, where Dawn crouched near her. Buffy keened softly, demonstrating that she still breathed, if not for much longer, but there was a gurgling sound in her throat. It had always been a futile endeavor, bringing her here. She raised her hands weakly and began to claw at her face. Giles sighed sadly and attempted to pull her hands away, but she fought him off with surprising strength. It must be the end, he supposed. She would burn the last of her strength, and then they would figure out how to leave without her, Angel and Spike each took a hand, muscles straining visibly as they tried to hold her back. How could she be so strong, even now? Despite all they could do, she wrenched away from their grip. Her nails dug deep furrows into the blistered skin of her face. A thick layer of it came away, and Giles could bear to look no more. He closed his eyes as the others gasped. She might well have torn her face away down to the skull, in the condition she was in.  
"I guess it would be too much to ask you to give me a hand," Buffy said petulantly.  
Giles' eyes sprang open. Buffy had indeed peeled the skin from her face; underneath was...skin. Undamaged skin. Her eyes were clear, her face only lightly spotted with blood, with no sign of the horrific sores from only moments ago. She pulled, and more skin came away, clearing her neck, leaving even her hair at its accustomed length as if it had somehow been folded beneath her skin.  
"Buffy?" Giles removed his glasses and cleaned them carefully. When he replaced them, the Slayer was still pulling skin from her unaccountably healthy form. With a grimace, she dragged layers of skin from beneath her tattered shirt. "I must confess that I do not understand...what has just happened."  
"Thanks for getting me out," she replied. "The short answer is a name: Blight Internalization Transcendence."  
"And the long one?"  
Buffy sighed, a long deep sigh. "I almost wish I didn't know. So will you. But I'll tell you anyway. It's a long, long, _long_ story."  
Giles looked around at the cavern and the ragtag band he'd led there. "We have time."


	2. All That Glitters Is Not Brass

"I've been trying to piece it together," Buffy said as they trudged through the hills. "My best guess is that the idea that the Old Ones were banished by the Exalted as a group, not by a single Slayer. That makes more sense to me anyway. But the Exaltations all ended up here, not on Earth--except for one."  
"The Slayer powers," Willow suggested.  
"Right. But the thing is, there *were* no Infernals exactly until five years ago, here anyway. The Slayers are an Infernal caste. That leaves us with a few options. One is that we're in the past. Another is that this is another world in the present, and the Slayer's Exaltation was somehow sent _into_ the past. Either way, it's come to us the hard way, which might explain how I got it. Infernal Exaltation is _supposed_ to work by a demon coming and tempting you."  
"Ah!" Cordelia spoke up. "Maybe the, the...First Watchers caught that demon and used it to empower the First Slayer. They might not even have known what they had."  
"Sounds plausible enough," Wesley agreed. "Still, it doesn't explain why the Exaltation would then pass directly from one girl to the next."  
"Well," Buffy explained, "the Infernal and Abyssal Exaltations, according to Cyan, were both made by tampering with Solar Exaltations. So they can be altered. Somehow. By the Old Ones. Anyway, the other possibility is that mine is...something else. That someone else, from here or from our universe or wherever, made it. But it's still an Exaltation, just like a Bug and a Rolls are both cars."  
"What I'm not understanding," Fred asked, "is where these superpowers came from in the first place."  
Buffy threw up her hands. "Cyan said the Primordials--the Old Ones--made them, but I'm pretty sure she was lying, or at least holding something back. And she said the gods, who are lesser beings, tampered with them and betrayed their makers."  
"Glory didn't seem like any kind of lesser being to me." Dawn fidgeted, looking everywhere except at Buffy. In fairness, the mountains off to the east were pretty cool-looking.  
Giles nodded. "Still, that could be a matter of linguistic difference. In most Western countries, we traditionally use 'God' to refer to a hypothetical supreme being. And in many non-monotheistic faiths, a 'god' still tends to be very powerful. Brahma, for instance, or Odin. But in some religions a 'god' is simply any spirit to which one might pray. Even the Greeks had many lesser gods of individual streams and such."  
"That seems to be how it works here," Buffy agreed. "Cyan talked as if _everything_ had a god, but gods of things like individual pebbles and things might as well be germs."  
"So are there gods of gods?" Gunn asked.  
"Turtles all the way down," said Fred with a laugh.  
"I...uh, I don't think so. We didn't discuss it. But there are also powerful gods, like Ignis Divine and Luna--the sun and the moon."  
"You spoke of Solar Exalted," Giles said. "Are there Lunar Exalted also?"  
Buffy sighed. "Again, I got that impression, but, uh...we didn't get that far."  
*****  
"I'm sorry for doubting you," Cyan said, holding a cold compress to her own ribs. "Though in all honesty you gave me cause."  
"Sorry. I just...I wasn't expecting this at all. There aren't any other Exalted in my world...or if there are, they're doing a good job of hiding." Buffy shifted uneasily. In spite of Buffy having broken the other woman's bones--in spite of saying she was going to kill her!--Cyan had immediately resumed her friendly demeanor the moment the sparring was done. The guilt had crept up on her, and the next thing Buffy knew she was trying to make up and be friends. Something didn't seem right there. Somehow.  
"Either could be the truth. I've arranged for you to have a refresher course, on a great many things." She folded her hands and looked at Buffy. "As much as I've enjoyed having you over, I think it's time you saw your own place."  
"My own place?" Somehow she didn't think Cyan was sending her home.  
"Every Green Sun Prince has a townhouse in this area of Malfeas. Until a few days ago, there were only fifty. Now there are fifty-one. Malfeas himself has accepted the new situation, it seems, which is something he doesn't do easily. Assuming you don't die or break out the Yozis in the next few weeks, you can have a mansion built to your specifications as well, more or less where you like."  
"A m-mansion?" That should *not* tempt her as much as it did. "Here in Malfeas, though, right?"  
Cyan spread her hands in a shrug. "I'm sure that one way or another you will be able to build a mansion in Creation soon, if you like. But let me make my point. We're expected to work together for the good of the Reclamation, but you also need to learn to stand on your own, so that you have something to offer the rest of us. Take a week. Read up. Practice your fighting. Practice your charms. And then, well...more than any of the rest of us, you don't know what it's like out there. I can't order you around, but my advice to you is to find a spot in Creation--not too close to the Blessed Isle, not just yet--and get a feel for the terrain and the people. I don't think it's anything like what you're used to."  
"Do I need to hide?" Somehow Buffy doubted Infernals were accepted in polite society.  
"Yes and no." Cyan held out her right hand. "Don't break cover in a place full of Exalts, like the Blessed Isle, unless you're ready for the fight of your life. You've finally seen what happens when you really bring up the power. That's called an anima banner, and it's distinctive, both for you and for Infernals in general. Also, don't do anything against the interests of the Reclamation. You'll have to read up on what's what, but mainly don't actually start marching your armies just yet. Building up armies is fine, and you'll have to skirmish a bit to do that, but don't attack any major nations."  
"And we're talking about armies already? I just got here."  
"Buffy, sweet child...trust me on this. If you want an army, you can produce one. Not on the instant, no, but much faster than you seem to be thinking." Cyan smiled indulgently and held up her left hand. "But what you should do--anywhere in the Threshold you like--is practice your charms. Toss green fire about. Smash cities to flinders. Move things--or people, if you prefer--with your mind. Drink, dance, and fuck. Hell, build things, if you like. Paint, sculpt, create magic artifacts--the Reclamation isn't about making humanity miserable, it's about making life better for everyone, demons included. in short, enjoy yourself. There isn't anything you can do that can't be done more effectively with an Exaltation, and there are some things you can do that no one else can."  
"Just don't go wild on or near the Blessed Isle. I got it." Better for everyone _including_ demons? Buffy was pretty sure that wasn't possible.  
*****  
"And that was that. We parted on pretty good terms. I decorated my townhouse and even picked out a plan for my mansion." Cordelia gave her a goggle-eyed look, and she added, "I have to make it look good at least. Right? Anyway I visited a couple of times, but mostly I studied ancient scrolls." This time Giles, Wesley, and Willow all looked skeptical. "Hey, these weren't about demon guts. Mostly. Giles, have you ever heard of Slayers who could do more than fight well?"  
Giles and Wesley looked at each other. After a moment, Giles said hesitantly, "Slayers have manifested mystical talents of various sorts in the past. Testing you on crystals was more than just a ruse to mesmerize you. For the most part, these abilities have been quite minor, or variations on the theme of physical prowess, but there are older stories--legends, really, usually--of Slayers who were telekinetic, who could burn vampires with their touch, even one who supposedly could fly."  
Buffy tried to decide whether she felt thrilled at the idea or just ill. "All of it sounds really exciting, but...Giles, do I really have any business using these powers? If they come from demons...what if they start doing things to me? Changing me?"  
The pair of Watchers exchanged glances again. This time it was Wesley who answered. "I understand your apprehension, but evidently the powers in question are the same in nature as the Slayer abilities you've been using for five years, and that girls have been passing down for thousands. I'd be cautious, but not fearful."  
Buffy gave a slow, skeptical nod. "Anyway, I left like she wanted. The Yozis can't get out, and demons usually can't either, but people can go in and out whenever they want as long as you know the way. I went to a little town in the South, and tried to do at least part of what she wanted--mostly to learn. Except I came down with something nasty, and I was afraid I was going to die if I didn't get rid of it."  
"Looks like Blight Terminal Transition has its drawbacks," Cordelia said offhandedly.  
"You're not joking," Buffy said with a shudder. "I wasn't any less sick just because I couldn't die of it. And right as it was getting bad, something called the Wyld Hunt rode into town. I'm not sure I know what it is, except they hunt down Exalted. I barely managed to hide, and I kept getting worse for a day or two at least."  
"We thought you were dying," Fred put in. "I don't know how you survived something like that."  
Buffy shrugged. "Magic."  
"I could wish that you'd paid more attention to the politics of this place," Wesley ventured. "There seem to be several different types of Exalted, all at odds with one another, but I can't make out from your descriptions who is who. Is this Wyld Hunt--?"  
"If they are," Buffy said with a grumble, "they're a different kind of Exalted from all the rest. They seem to have superpowers too, but they call all the rest of us Anathema and Zerg rush us cause they're not as strong. I'm not even sure if they're wrong or right. Cyan talked about a golden age a long time ago, but then she worships the Old Ones, so even if she's being honest that doesn't make her right."  
"We need to at least make sure if Xander's all right or if he's dead," Anya grumbled. "I'm going to be so angry at him if he's dead."  
Buffy sighed. "The Wyld Hunt probably left him alone unless he made trouble," she said quietly. "But it's not a guarantee. The Dynasts are pretty classic nobility. Some of them are, well, noble, but most of them think they're entitled to whatever they want and to hell with everyone else. Cyan's not even really that different herself. The nicer she got, the more obvious it was that she was lying and the more it seemed like she was lying about."  
"Can you trust anything she said?" Willow's nervousness kept her stumbling along the rocky ground.  
"I have a pretty good idea what kind of things she was telling the truth about," Buffy murmured. "She has a genuine interest in helping me succeed, but she wants to be sure that I do what the Yozis want, and she'll lie like a rug to make that happen."  
Giles peered off into the distance at a rugged mesa. "Good that you've kept your head about you. We're drifting to the east, by the way." He led the way up and over one of the dry, rocky hills toward a different valley.  
"How did you know where to come looking for me?" Buffy offered Dawn a hand up a particularly steep embankment. "This isn't exactly the land of Oz."  
Angel waved in Fred's direction. "Fred knows a lot about interdimensional portals. She and Dawn fished about where the rift was until Fred worked out what words to use to come get you."  
"No biggie," Fred added. "Just got out of one hell dimension, so coming here isn't even really a change of scenery. Sorry about the extra side of crazy."  
Buffy nodded. "There's been a lot of that going around since Glory. I'm used to it. Thanks for coming to look. But to be honest, I'm not sure you should have come here. This world is a lot more dangerous than ours. We need to get you all back as soon as possible."  
*****  
Xander let them open the door. There was no point trying to hold a dozen people back. "Heya. You looking for something?"  
The tallest of them, a pale Asian-looking woman with a graceful sway in her step and a strange blue cast to her face, which was all he could see of her skin under the armor she was wearing. "We are. There are reports of Anathema in the area. Have you seen them?"  
"Anathema?" That meant something like "cursed", he thought. "I, uh...I don't think so. Is that one of those ceremonial knives?"  
The willowy woman scowled and took his chin roughly in her hand. "Listen to me carefully, boy. I am Peleps Weylan, and this is my subordinate Mnemon Yudani." She gestured toward a squat, dark man with most of his features hidden behind his helmet, who grunted. "You may think that my detachment here is nothing to speak of, if you are a fool, but if I succeed in finding the Anathema I can call on the outpost and have assistance in less than an hour. In the meanwhile, _you_ are barely even a nuisance. Or you can tell me what you know and be an asset, and I will ride away and leave you unharmed."  
"What if I don't know anything?"  
Peleps weighed him with her eyes. "The Anathema do not easily hide. You know something, even if it is only that there was a pillar of green light three days ago. That much, you have seen, since you are not blind. Peasants here do not travel, and you are no nomad."  
"No," Xander allowed. "No nomad. No be mad? No nomad here."  
Some of the soldiers snickered uneasily, but Peleps glared at them and they wiped the grins off their faces. "Behave like a fool, and I will paint you like one and carry you off. After I cut your tongue out. I will ask you once more. What do you know about the Anathema? Such vile creatures cannot be allowed to wander the world unchecked. I have a duty to stop them."  
Wait, was she talking about demons? Maybe he was misunderstanding something. Only, the rumors they'd heard passing through the villages had spoken of a blond girl who was plainly Buffy. No mention of demons. "You aren't by any chance a Slayer, are you?"  
Peleps poked him in the chest. "I am a slayer of Anathema. I ride with the Wyld Hunt. You are trying my patience, peasant!"  
Well, if he was trying her patience, then he was giving the others time to get away. He looked over at the soldiers and raised his eyebrows. "Help, help! I'm being repressed!" Peleps seized him by the collar and lifted him. "Now you see the violence inherent in the system!" The others looked at each other quizzically. There was a little nervous laughter. Why couldn't they know his best material?  
Peleps snarled under her breath. "You have not yet seen anything of violence, little man. But you are about to." With a vicious glare, she kneed Xander in the groin and dropped him to the floor, where he tried not to curl up in agony. "Take charge of this one while I search the area. We'll make him talk later."  
He'd had no time to do more than pull a bundle of straw over the trap door. If she searched the area now she'd find the tunnel in moments. "Wait," Xander gasped. "I'll talk. Give me just a second to...catch my breath. I'll talk."  
Peleps gave an imperious gesture and a pair of soldiers dragged him to his feet. "Had enough? Tell me what you know."  
"I know about being a soldier," he groaned. "I know about fighting monsters. I know about a thousand movies you've never seen. I know about fifty different sexual positions, and that only ten or so are remotely practical."  
Peleps kneed him again. "None of them, now, not for you. You're trying to delay me. Rough him--"  
"Yes!" Xander shouted, half-strangling. "Yes, I'm trying to delay you. You don't want to miss my act when I perform in front of the Duchess of San Francisco! You need to stay so you can watch, it'll be the best night of your lives."  
Finally he got a reaction from Peleps other than anger. She rolled her eyes. "Just kill him." She pulled out a heavy, serrated knife.  
"You realize that blade's no good for cutting meat," he choked out. "That'd be more of a bread knife." Buy the Scoobies every second he could. He was going to die from the infection in his gut no matter what they did. If these guys wanted to torture him, well, he'd been there and done that.  
"A pity the Anathema has so thoroughly compelled your loyalty," Peleps said with a shake of her head. "Someone with your tenacity should have come to a better end." She put the knife to his throat.  
**Tenacity you have in plenty, child of the faraway.**  
Okay, what the hell was that? Peleps applied pressure to the blade, piercing his skin.  
**Loyalty and courage as well, and the will to stand.  
** Yet you have long been the weakest of your comrades  
Though great of heart and soul.  
The knife sliced through an artery. _If you're offering help, whoever you are, can we skip the long-winded speech?_ Blood came gushing from the wound.  
**Would you wield power in measure  
** According to your strengths?  
This I give to you, if you desire it.  
Behind the knife, the flesh closed up again. Peleps' distant curse echoed in his ears.  
**Rise, child of noonday. Rise and burn with light.  
** Mend what has been torn  
While yet there is time.  
"I should have known," Peleps growled. "I was certain you were a lackey of some sort."  
Xander shrugged. "You weren't exactly wrong. Only you picked the wrong lackey to cut the throat of, Peleps."  
"The name is Weylan, Anathema. Peleps _Weylan_. Remember it, if you live so long." She dropped the knife and raised her hands.  
"Sorry," he deadpanned. "Wrong naming convention. I didn't realize the Wyld Hunt was Bajoran." The soldiers stared at each other and began to snicker again. "Anyway, I thought you wanted me to talk, not stand here while you beat me to a pulp." Mnemon Yudani, with his stone face, glared, but the rest laughed louder. "Look, I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, but from the looks of you guys I'm out of ass. Mind if I just step outside for a sec? I'm sure I can find some people your own size to pick on." The laughter built to a crescendo. Six of the ten remaining soldiers began to guffaw and slap their thighs. Was he that good?  
Wait, had he been _made_ that good?  
Just then Weylan slammed a fist into his stomach. And then things really got hairy.  
*****  
The trip through the tunnel had been short and uneventful; the trip back over more rugged terrain was long and kinda painful. Dawn's feet were sore by the time they clambered over an outcrop and saw the village beneath them. The sun was about to come up, and Spike and Angel were getting extremely antsy about it. Finally Mr. Giles got annoyed and handed them a bundle of blankets that had been with Buffy's litter and told them to wrap up their heads and hands.  
"I don't see any sign of trouble down there," Buffy said, peering over the ridge, "but I'm pretty sure there is."  
"Are you sensing something?" Wesley asked. Like Giles, he'd been frustrated for months by Buffy's general failure to develop her Slayersense.  
"No," Buffy said, scowling, "I'm seeing horses that weren't here before. In armor. Horse armor."  
"Barding," Angel said, muffled behind the blankets.  
"Barding," Buffy agreed. "The Hunt's still here. I can take them. Backup won't hurt, but stay away from anyone tossing energy bolts or glowing." As if she'd never even been ill, she swung her feet over the ridge and dropped twenty feet to the ground, then took off running toward the buildings, leaving them to scramble down on their own.  
"How are we s'posed to back her up," Spike muttered, his voice muffled by blankets, "when she leaves us behind like that?"  
Dawn wasn't sure it mattered. There weren't any ooofs or bangs or crashes coming from the sickhouse, where she was pretty sure Buffy had gone back in. There weren't any fight sounds at all, and now that they were down, people started coming out of their mud brick houses to stare at the intruders.  
Spike stopped in the doorway of the sickhouse, blocking Angel, who shoved him on in. "Hey! Bloody ask me to move next time!"  
"You'd have said no," Angel said as Dawn caught up. She saw why they had stopped. Three piles of armor lay against the wall, coated in ash. And on the bed sat Xander, shirtless, while Buffy studied the faint scratches on his side where a lethal wound had been. The rest of the Scoobies began to crowd their way in behind her.  
A whirlwind slammed Spike aside as Anya dashed into the room and launched herself at Xander, wrapping herself around him. "Jesus, Mary, and sweet muppety Odin, you're all right!"  
Xander responded by sweeping her down and around into his arms and bending down to kiss her forcefully on the lips. Anya's eyes went wide and she clung to his neck. For a moment Dawn thought she was only stunned by the kiss, but Anya's muffled groans got louder and louder and her face turned flushed before she finally broke away gasping.  
"I knew you were good with your tongue, but Xander, that's ridiculous! Do it again!"  
"What?" Xander sat down with her on the bed again. "Do what again?"  
"Xander! More orgasms! Please?"  
"Er...in a little while when we're alone, honey. Is that okay?" Anya made a grumpy noise in her throat, but she nodded. "So are we making the loop again?" Xander raised his eyebrows. "We're not lost, are we? Buffy was just about to tell me how neither of us is dead yet."  
"I don't know about you," Buffy said, "but I was never actually dying in the first place. Didn't mean to fool you, sorry. Now you tell me how you beat a Wyld Hunt squad."  
Xander shrugged. "Got lucky. There were only two superheroes in this one, and their team turned on them when Weylan and Yudani tried to stop me from telling jokes. I guess I'm just that funny."  
"You...what?" Buffy squeezed her eyes shut and reopened them. "Tell me again from the top."  
"Peleps Weylan tried to drown me with a punch to the guts--don't ask me how that worked, I don't know--and then her quiet buddy Mnemon Yudani opened a crevice under my feet. Then the rest of the unit turned on them and saved my butt. Those three died, over there, and spontaneously combusted." Xander turned and stuck his head into the next room. "Hey, guys, one of you come explain this mess to my friends!"  
A short, stocky woman finished washing her hands and came through the door. "I was wrong to think of you as Anathema, Illuminated One. Truly the Sun shines on you and sanctifies you. I was a fool. Forgive me?"  
Xander waved a hand dismissively. "It's no big. These are my friends. Be nice."  
"The Sun?" Buffy sounded puzzled and, strangely, envious.  
"Big important voice in my head," Xander said. "My jokes got better and then suddenly when Weylan and Yudani started the fight I started glowing. Also somehow they didn't kill me before the rest of the team could make a move. Hey, Mylin, how come again your friends burned up when they died?"  
Mylin stared at him. "I told you, it was no natural occurrence. You did that."  
"How?"  
Mylin threw up her hands. "I know nothing of the powers of the Illuminated, Xander. I regret having wasted my life opposing you. Perhaps I could tell you, otherwise. Please, may I go back and see to the patients?"  
Xander nodded. "Of course. Be sure to wash your hands! Kill those germs so you don't spread the infections." She left, and he added to Buffy, "So I'm in the dark here, Illuminated or not."  
"You're a Solar," Buffy said, looking down. Looking weirdly sulky. "You're a hero."  
"Wait," Xander said, looking around at the Scoobies. "I don't get it. This is bad?"  
"Where are Weylan and Yudani?" Buffy asked, evading his question.  
"Hogtied and under guard," Xander said. "The squad said they'd probably get away eventually, but I'm not going to make it easy on them. Why is it bad that I'm a Solar whatever?"  
Buffy stood up, her face crumpling, and she stomped outside.  
"Hey, uh...was it something I said?"  
*****  
"Ignis Divine stole the designs of the Exaltations," Cyan explained. "He modified some of them to oppose the Primordials and set them against their creators. Others, he gave to other gods to modify, to aid in his rebellion. The Exaltations were designed to challenge the bounds of possibility, and one impossibility was that the Primordials could be defeated."  
"So these...infinite improbability weapons made it possible for humans to beat the Primordials. And kill some of them?" There was a disturbing sort of sense falling into place with this story, though Cyan was definitely not telling the whole truth.  
"The Neverborn, yes, as they are now known. But when the gods saw that killing the Primordials was destroying Creation--surprise, surprise, given that the Primordials *made* Creation--they forced the rest to surrender and mutilated them by killing some of their souls. These became the Yozis, who were imprisoned in the new body of their former king, Malfeas." Cyan didn't seem to enjoy these lectures. She hurried through them impatiently as if they were something Buffy should have learned long ago.  
"Then how did there get to be Infernal Exaltations?" The war at the beginning of the world was familiar, but how did any of this fit in with the future as she knew it? Or was she in some alternate present in some other dimension?  
"The Solars ruled the world as mad tyrants for thousands of years, but eventually the other Exalted rebelled and imprisoned their Exaltations. Very recently the Primordials' servants freed the Exaltations from their jade prison in order to alter them. Some escaped, loosing the Solars on the world again. The other half were split between the Neverborn, who modified the Solars into Abyssals, and the Yozis, who made the Infernals. The Neverborn just want to destroy the world so they can finish dying. But the Yozis want us to free them and set the world right again."  
"So I...used to be a Solar? Could have been a Solar?" The Solars' rule was the most likely thing for Cyan to be lying about. They'd probably been more like King Arthur with superpowers, wise and fair. And she could have been one of them, instead of...what she was. The idea made her want to sick up.  
"I promise you, Buffy. It's better this way. You'd have been corrupted like all the other Solars. So would I have been. They were mad beasts who needed to be put down." Cyan put a gentle hand on Buffy's shoulder. She didn't _seem_ evil. But then it was the subtlest, creepiest kinds of evil that didn't.  
"I thought I was one of the good guys, that's all." But she was the Slayer! She fought the demons and the forces of darkness! Only, so did Spike, and she knew he wasn't really a hero. Even Angel would go back to being a monster without the curse of his soul. So what was she?  
"Of course you're one of the good guys," Cyan said with a faint, disturbing smile. "Just like me." Lying again. God, she was lying. Buffy could _feel_ it.  
What was going to happen to her?  
*****  
Willow came out to find Buffy staring out over a cliff. It was a beautiful sight, with the sun rising in the distance, turning the sky from dim purples and orangey-red clouds to a brilliant blue. The clouds faded away before it, carrying any potential rain with them. Great mesas rose toward the sky out there, twisting stone into fantastic shapes--dinosaur heads, giant ladders, treelike knobs.  
Willow didn't think Buffy was here for the view.  
"You remember when we fought Ms. Madison?"  
"Not really," Buffy muttered. "I was out of it most of that fight. I think the blood in my alcohol stream was starting to run low."  
"She was the first witch we ever met. Giles knew a few spells, but he made them sound dangerous and scary to keep us from being tempted. He even claimed it was his first casting ever. Going by Catherine Madison's example, you'd think being a witch was just inherently evil. Only, not that long after we met Jenny, and then I started learning magic too. And it turned out magic could be evil or good, it was all in how you used it."  
Buffy gave her a level look. "Have you ever invoked Korsheth?"  
Willow coughed, trying not to look embarrassed. "Well, no. Um...do you have to actually invoke the Yozis to use your powers?" That might not be so good. She'd have to get their approval, and they probably wouldn't give that for nice things.  
"No. Not so far, anyway. But it's their raw demony energy. Essence, it's called here."  
"I thought you said it was the same power you've always used, though. The same power that makes you a Slayer."  
"Well, yeah. In its simplest form. I can make myself stronger and tougher and faster. Cyan said I could do more than that, things I mostly haven't tried yet, but still basic stuff. She also made hellfire burst out of my wounds. Is it a good idea to go around stabbing people with hellfire?" Buffy turned back to gaze out into the distance again. "I wonder if I could even do it. She said Sacheverell was never wrong."  
"Maybe you shouldn't use hellfire," Willow said, trying to be reasonable. Also to not talk about what Buffy seemed to be hinting at. "But what other things did she talk about? Can you move things with your mind? Can you fly?"  
"I don't know. I think there was something about flying. Move things with my mind, definitely, but it's a fairly advanced charm. She said before I even tried to do that, I should try to fortify my basic abilities in other ways."  
"What ways?"  
"She said I could be more persuasive, prettier...even smarter. Just by doing it the right way. I...don't know if I understood her exactly." Buffy kept staring off into the distance, refusing to meet her eyes. "At the really advanced end, some of the texts mentioned 'shintai' charms. I'm not sure what that meant, but they seemed to be transformations of some kind."  
Willow furrowed her brow. "'Shintai' in our world is something like 'god-body'. In Japanese. Maybe it means taking on an aspect of the Yozis. You might be right about that being a bad idea."  
"Is any of it a good idea?"  
"An awful lot of spells are totally harmless, Buffy. If we'd taken Ms. Madison as our example of what a witch has to be, Glory would have destroyed the universe. And remember when Tara's family told her she was part demon and that's where her magic came from?"  
Buffy sighed. "Yeah. But would you say the same thing about vampire powers? Spike is evil. He can't be otherwise. We can make him...tame, maybe, but we can't make him *want* to do good things. Even Angel is stuck with Angelus inside him, forever. I don't want to be like that."  
"Have you done anything that would make you think you'd be like that?" Buffy turned away from her entirely. "Buffy...what did you do?"  
*****  
It really wasn't that much of a town, but it was more than a village. The locals called it Red Rock, which wasn't too imaginative given the surrounding mesas. Still, given that it lay in the shadow of that immense statue, it didn't really require too much of a unique name. Every day at three the shadow of the Supplicant's head passed through, covering the town for about an hour.  
Red Rock had a general store and three inns, a temple to some kind of "immaculate" faith and a couple of smithies. It had a bank that doubled as the storefront of a gem merchant. It had a rather sleepy-looking military outpost that mostly enforced local law.  
In short, it was a nice place for Buffy to be a wanderer passing through, to hang out for a while and experiment.  
She helped out a couple of farmers who were struggling with a broken plow. That much was easy, though; all it took was strength. So as an experiment--nothing more!--she flirted with the better-looking of the farmers, a young man with a small burn scar on his cheek. A little alarmed by the results, she flirted with his wife, then with the pair of them together. A couple of rounds of shared kisses later she pleaded business at the store and scooted outside.  
She tried to haggle at the general store without much success, wondering what she was doing wrong. Finally she put her foot down and demanded lunch for a couple of small coins. Sweating nervously, the merchant handed over twice what she had asked for half the price. Feeling guilty, she scarfed it down before it could spoil in the heat.  
She slipped a diamond ring into her pocket at the bank--again, just as an experiment, of course! None of the bankers spotted her. She swiped another ring, and a bracelet, and finally a pocketful of gold nuggets. Finally, she tried sliding them casually back into their places and was promptly caught in the act. She bluffed, claiming to be attached to a security firm. There were terrible gaps in their security. Thieves could rob them blind at any time. All she'd done was demonstrate the fact. Buffy wasn't even sure security firms existed in this world. They bought her story anyway and asked her price for helping them out. She told them she'd get back to them later.  
At the inn, Buffy claimed to be a traveling entertainer. Under the innkeeper's skeptical eye, she climbed onstage to sing and dance. In moments the crowd was cheering and throwing her money, despite the fact that she was performing an a capella rendition of "Bohemian Rhapsody". She was a little surprised at remembering all the words, but they simply flowed out of her with hardly an effort.  
Cyan had implied she didn't actually need to sleep at all. The little town rolled up its streets shortly after sundown, so she slipped out of the inn and went patrolling.  
Red Rock was just as sleepy as she'd expected, so it was no surprise to find it asleep, its streets rolled up and its lights out, except that there was still a little partying going on in the inns. Even that was dying down. She tried to reach out with her Slayer senses, but found nothing. Cyan had made a distinction between Insignificant Embers Intuition, which she knew, and Hellscry Chakra, which she didn't. Plus there were several other sensory Charms. Which one it was Slayers were supposed to have known for centuries was something Buffy was still trying to work out--or maybe it was several of them working at once? Maybe it was that very confusion that was keeping her from learning it.  
What she did notice was something creeping into town from further south, where the desert grew even more extreme. These things looked like massive gorillas, except for the great spurs of bone jutting from their backs. She could smell a miasma of blood about the creatures. They might have been natural predators from this world, for all she knew--except that suddenly she *did* know. These were no ordinary animals, and somehow Buffy didn't think they were gods.  
"So tell me," she said, striking a pose, "are you guys working for Bowser or Donkey Kong? The uniform's making it less than clear." The demon-apes grunted at each other and charged.  
There were maybe a dozen of them, and that seemed like a lot, but their tactics left something to be desired. She leapt into the air and came down nimbly between the spurs on the lead ape's back, a single stake already out. It couldn't kill these creatures so easily as a vampire, but a piece of sharp wood driven hard into the eye ruined it and pierced the interior of the skull, scrambling its brains, and it lurched hard against a building and fell.  
Of course there were plenty left. Rather than try and grab her former weapon from its body, she yanked another stake from under her jacket and leapt again and again. Another five of the simple creatures went down the same way before the one she was trying to leap onto stumbled over a corpse. She landed on its back all the same, but one foot came down hard on the spur of bone jutting from its shoulder. She could handle pain--she had known worse pain before--yet pain mixed with anger this time. Anger at finding the same task here that she'd spent her whole life both carrying out and running from. Anger at the gall of people who thought she might somehow join the side she'd been fighting against. Anger and pain, and the world went red.  
*****  
"So you lost control fighting some demons," Willow said quietly. "I don't know that that's so bad. You didn't kill any people, did you?"  
"I don't know what I killed," Buffy answered. "I came to miles away, in the morning. All I know is, something I did got the Wyld Hunt's attention. For all I know I killed some of them that night. Either way, I left town, and whatever I did freaked me out enough that I ran for miles before passing out in the middle of the desert. And when I woke up I didn't remember what I'd done."  
Willow sighed. "Buffy, you can't just assume that you hurt someone. You're freaking out just over finding out that you're an Infernal, so there's no reason to think fugueing that way means you killed anyone."  
"Buffy," said Tara, and Willow jumped. Buffy barely seemed to react to her presence at all, though Tara had come up right behind her. "She's right, Buffy. And you need to try to stop thinking that being an Infernal is somehow horrible in itself. You're not any less a hero because of the particular kind of power you're using. Wesley's right--be careful of side effects, but don't just run away from what you can do. Trust me on this."  
"I don't suppose you guys would try, er...meditating with me. And I just mean meditating, um, nothing, you know...."  
"Sexual?" Tara asked, her voice perfectly level.  
Buffy blushed bright red. "Right. I don't think what you can do is the same exactly, you're not Exalted, but according to Cyan sorcery works by manipulating Essence, the same as regular Charms do. And there are powers I need to try meditating on before I access them, things that don't come as natural to me as the stuff I'm used to."  
"I don't see any reason why not," Tara said after a moment, with Willow nodding immediately after. "Let us know what you're planning to do, though. There are things that might be best left alone."  
"And you can probably tell me about some of those," Buffy agreed. "That is...I mean...there might be things that are a problem from the way I'm doing them even though they don't sound wrong. Like...I never understood why it was worse for Luke to Force-choke his enemies than to stab them with his lightsaber until Willow told me it was because he was turning life energy against life." She still didn't quite understand that one, but it made *some* sense.  
"I understand," Tara said, putting a hand on Buffy's shoulder. "We'll try it whenever you're ready."  
*****  
"Okay," Buffy said. "Here we go. This is something called 'Viridian Legend Exoskeleton'. It's supposed to give me a suit of brass armor, if I read it right. I'm still learning the language here."  
"*Brass* armor?" Willow asked in a quizzical tone. "No steel plate?"  
Buffy shrugged. "Malfeas is made of brass and basalt. Brass is a big thing, apparently. Cyan once said something disrespectful about his big brass balls too."  
Tara laughed. "Well, we don't have any of those here. It doesn't sound dangerous." She dropped to a cross-legged position. "Sit across from me and Willow. We'll hold hands."  
"Just hold hands, right?" Buffy curled her legs up. "Sorry, I'm kidding...mostly. I know some of the magic stuff involves sexy fun times."  
Willow glanced at Tara. "More of it is, um, sensual than sexual. There are some things, though. Most of those I learned from Tara. I promise, Buffy, you have nothing to worry about. I'm not into threesomes." Tara raised an eyebrow. "Um, Tara's not either." She offered her hands to the other women.  
Tara took Buffy and Willow's hands. "All right, Buffy. We're going to close our eyes and breathe deeply together. You know your deep breathing exercises, right?"  
"Giles taught me when we were working with crystals." Buffy inhaled deeply and held the breath for a few seconds before releasing it.  
"That's right. Now, I apologize in advance if I start looking uneasy. The power you're handling is gonna be different from what I'm used to, and it may feel...er, yucky." Tara joined in the deep breathing, with Willow falling in last.  
They remained that way in silence for a few moments before Buffy peeked. Tara was, in fact, looking a little green. Willow was having less trouble, but there was a frown on her face. Buffy sighed. She must be connecting with the power if it was making Tara ill, but she didn't feel anything happening. Maybe her mindset was wrong; the brass armor was supposed to defend her from something, and she wasn't in any danger.  
Sooner or later Cyan was going to send someone looking for her if she didn't get back to Malfeas. It might be weeks or months, but not too long. If she didn't learn some things before then, there would probably be trouble when they arrived. Regarding Xander, for one thing. If Xander didn't decide he needed to turn on her.  
Something crystallized in Buffy's head. She stared down at her hands, but nothing seemed to be happening. Maybe it really just didn't work this way. Maybe she had to actually be fighting. Wait...something was spreading across her arms. Tara gave a little gasp and opened her eyes. A nasty greenish tarnish made its way down over her hands, across her legs--she could feel it growing over her face, even her eyes. Great, she'd screwed it up and now she was probably going to end up with radiation poisoning again, only this time for real.  
Willow stared at her as well. "Buffy, you look--"  
She broke off as the tarnish began to flake away from Buffy's skin. Beneath it was brass, all right. Not a suit of armor, though, not the way she'd been thinking. There were no joints to the metal, which seemed to have grown over or maybe even replaced her skin. The tarnish peeled away and broke into bits that crumbled into dust, then into nothing at all. Buffy lifted her shirt. Her abs were brass. Her legs were brass. She tapped a finger against her chest with a clinking sound. If she pressed down, she could feel a little give, and all her joints seemed to work fine, but she was definitely coated in metal. Maybe even made of metal. "Guys, um...my eyes? Am I...?"  
Willow nodded mutely. Tara opened her purse and pulled out a compact for Buffy, who could only stare. Her eyes were brass, too, with a slight green glow in the pupils. Even her hair looked like spun metal threads. A fine line of script wound its way around her arms, glowing faintly green. She tapped at the soles of her feet, the back of her head. More clinking. After a moment of embarrassment, she peered into the ruined remnants of her shorts. Brass. All brass. "I don't think this is quite what I was expecting."  
"Well, it *is* armor," Willow said. "More like Colossus than 'knight in shining', but still just armor."  
"Just my luck if I run into a firebreathing dragon," Buffy said grumpily.  
"W-we wouldn't m-mind," Tara said with a nervous giggle. "That is, we hope you don't b-but I'm sure you're n-nice to look at."  
Buffy let out a long sigh. "Shiny, no doubt about it. Brass butt and all." Looking herself over one last time, she added, "That reminds me. I've got to find some new clothes. These are trashed, and there's no telling when I'll find my way back to my apartment."  
"The one in Malfeas, you mean? How do you get back there?" Tara frowned worriedly.  
"In theory, the way I got in. In practice...I really don't know. There are portals scattered here and there, but they're just not that common, and I got turned around while I was in combat fugue mode. They're called 'gates of inauspicious passage', and asking about them is a good way to get a mob to come after you."  
"You said you brought a little money with you," Willow pointed out. "Now that the Wyld Hunt's out of the way...for now...could you buy some clothes?"  
Buffy nodded. "Probably. This is a sleepy little farming village, but if nothing else I can probably get something second-hand." She made a little grumpy noise about that; Buffy had long since accepted that she wasn't rich any more, but she still liked her nice clothes. "We'll go looking after I change back." She looked herself over and stretched, flexing the muscles of her torso. "I'm pretty conspicuous right now, but hey...at least this is a good look for me."  
*****  
"Niblet, you all right?" Spike was antsy, pacing back and forth in the confines of the tiny room. Sooner or later the sun would go down and he could head out and get something to eat...somewhere. This world's humans seemed to be just as off-limits as Earth's.  
Dawn seemed just as on edge, but it showed up differently in her. She kept looking over her shoulder. After a few hours of being forced to watch her, he'd realized that she was looking south. Always south, and that worried him. Buffy had said there was nothing much to the south, just more desert, and after that, some sort of chaos called the Wyld. Which was only vaguely related to the Wyld Hunt, and that made little sense to him, but eh. Humans were all mad. And that particular part of the Wyld was called the Elemental Pole of Fire. Definitely not a good place for a vampire.  
"I don't know," Dawn said nervously. "Something about this place...I feel off. But not really. It's hard to explain. I want to go home."  
"We all do, bit."  
"I know that, Spike, it's just that...." She turned deliberately toward the south again and pointed. "It feels like home is _thataway_."


	3. Of Tesseracts and Tentacle Monsters

They came down out of the mesas at last over a long line of craggy hills, avoiding Red Rock. Angel could smell more water and less dust in the air. The soil changed, growing softer under his feet. Buffy called this place the Lap, and pointed to the immense meditating statue. The desert was by no means a region of death, as humans usually thought, but the Lap was certainly a zone of more life. Scattered fields of grain appeared almost at once and quickly merged into a great belt of wheat, rice, and corn, broken only by roads and scattered clusters of houses.  
Buffy walked beside him, wearing loose drab cotton clothes that were nonetheless a massive step up from the rags she'd had. He wasn't entirely sure why she'd bypassed the gate to Malfeas and her townhouse, but hell wasn't a place he'd wanted to go even as a guest. She had bargained for an outfit several times on the way out of the highlands, making a small step up each time, and he wasn't even sure how she'd managed it. Since when had a California girl learned how to make best use of the barter system? She glanced at him, and he realized he'd spoken that aloud. Well, muttered it anyway.  
"Cyan wasn't all that pleased with my set of powers, and I don't understand all the details, but she did say that knowing Ebon Dragon Excellencies was really useful in the Realm." Buffy didn't sound chatty exactly. More as if she were unburdening herself of secrets she'd rather not keep.  
"Excellencies are...powers that enhance your natural abilities?"  
She nodded. "But it's not as simple as being super-strength, or super-stealth, not for me. Or maybe it's more simple. Each of the Yozis has a theme. The Ebon Dragon is sneaky, and underhanded, and he breaks the law. He's out for himself. And I must've unconsciously learned to use that to sneak around in the dark and hunt vampires and demons, because the others are never more than so-so for that and Malfeas can't sneak worth a damn. But that's just a tiny part of his Excellencies. Most of the Yozis are evil the way Chthulu is evil. They embody these concepts of the universe and they're big and they step on humans like bugs. Not cause they hate us, just cause they don't really care about us. But the concept the Ebon Dragon embodies _is_ evil, or something awful close to evil. He's darkness and lies and being selfish and I'm...ashamed to be even a little associated with him."  
"But?" There had to be a but, or she wouldn't have said it was useful to have.  
"Xander and I are 'anathema' in the Realm. It's illegal to use our powers. It's illegal to do most things, or even be here. Hell, it's illegal for us to _exist_. That doesn't make much difference to Xander's powers. But mine...it makes them a lot more effective. How's that for irony?"  
Angel thought that one over. "So you can do whatever you want and be better at it because it's wrong?"  
"Well, it's not quite _that_ easy. Even the Ebon Dragon isn't much good when things are just crimes for the sake of being crimes. It's illegal for me to sell bread here, for instance, and he's too malicious to waste time on that. But as long as I can be a little sneaky or selfish about it, that's good enough to help a little."  
"What are you even planning to do here, Buffy? I mean, if it's illegal to be here in the Realm...." Angel found his gaze drawn to the immense statue. It made him think of seeing Ellis Island for the first time, but the Penitent dwarfed Liberty.  
"I can't stay away forever, Angel. The Realm is the most advanced society in this hellhole. The Solars had this utopia and these other minor Exalted destroyed it, I don't even know why. Jealousy, I guess. Cyan claimed the Solars went mad, but she works for the Ebon Dragon and I know she lies every chance she gets." She stared at the Penitent too, frowning, but also studying it as if she sensed something about it that he couldn't. "What's left of that world's knowledge is here, and I have to figure out how to get it or we'll never go home."  
"Fred tried," Angel pointed out. "She knows a little something herself."  
"She tried for years to get home from Pylea, too, but she didn't know enough. Who knows how interdimensional travel works here? I'm not even sure we didn't travel through time. Can she do that?"  
Angel shook his head helplessly. "I don't know."  
*****  
"I think Buffy senses it," Willow said to Giles. "It's hard to say. Maybe she's just detecting the beings I can sense living there; we know she can do that."  
"Can you tell what it is?" Giles himself was vaguely aware of the mystic forces emanating from the statue. He lacked the sensitivity of a full mystic training, never having done more than dabble himself, but it was impossible not to notice the immense magical power the Penitent had been designed to command.  
Willow scrutinized the Penitent. "It's a...a landscaping tool, I think. I mean on a mystical level. If it were in our world we could close every Hellmouth in existence at once--or rip them wide open. And that's just a side-effect. It's meant to alter mystical currents on a huge scale." She glanced at Tara briefly. "At least, that's what I think."  
Tara nodded. "It might open other kinds of dimensional portals, but I'd have to see the controls to be sure. I don't have a clue how it works." Willow spread her hands in agreement.  
Wesley laid a hand briefly on his holster, making Willow wonder what use he thought a gun would be here. How much ammunition did he have? "Something like that would have to be heavily guarded. I'd guess that the entrance is near the top, which means we have a long way to go to get there."  
"At a glance," Giles asked him, "would you say these people are capable of such a feat of magical engineering?"  
"I suspect Buffy's information is accurate," Wesley said. He peered up at the statue again. "While sorcery often has less effect on the population at large than technology, a feat like that would require dozens of enchanters working for months or even years. They would have to be specialists, so there would be many more working in other fields. The society would have to be overflowing with advanced magics. I don't see any sign of such a thing here."  
"I concur," said Giles. "Buffy's story, or rather Cyan's, would seem to be confirmed thus far. The question then becomes, what is Cyan lying about?"  
*****  
"It's not as bad as Pylea," Gunn muttered. Fred gave him a sidelong glance. "It's probably not as bad as Earth a couple of hundred years ago. That looks rough, but at least they're not all black. Or white, or whatever."  
"If you say so," Fred mumbled back. So it wasn't racial slavery. Fine, that just meant that it could happen to anyone.  
There weren't actually that many of them, she tried to tell herself. The Lap was swarming with farmers tending to their crops, with only a relative handful of workers on chain gangs repairing roads or shoveling manure. But every crack of the whip reminded her of the collar she'd worn around her neck for three years. It might not be direct neural-induction pain, but it was still pain.  
"Yeah," said Gunn, "I'm just trying not to notice it too." He set his jaw and looked away. "It's not our world. It's not our business."  
"Glad you didn't say that on Pylea."  
"Pylea was a petty feudal kingdom, Fred. This is a massive empire. I hate what's happening here, but we don't stand a chance. Even Buffy's out of her league, if the rulers all have superpowers."  
"Yeah, well, I thought you were saying not being race slavery made it better. But now that you mention it, that's exactly what it is." She jabbed a finger at a woman passing by in fancy clothes, with leaves in her hair and rough green skin. "Bet you never see them on the chain gangs."  
"It doesn't matter, Fred. Just what are you going to do about it?"  
Fred watched another whip crack above another set of shoulders and felt her collar zap her again. "I don't know. I really don't."  
*****  
Xander wasn't sure what to do with Anya. Sure, she was thrilled that he was back from seeming death, and with superpowers at that. But he could've done with a little less clinging. The idea that he--the last of the Scoobies to still be an ordinary schmoe--was suddenly a superhero empowered by an ancient intangible weapon was simultaneously heady and terrifying. At least Buffy had some level of understanding what she could do. She'd had the powers for five years, even if she was just now starting to understand her limits or lack thereof.  
Could _he_ turn his skin into brass? Or anything along those lines?  
Every time the group had stopped at a farmhouse he'd let Anya steer him into some little private or semiprivate spot and given her some smooches. And every time.... Sure, a little of that was Anya rather than anything he was doing. But not much, he suspected. What else was he capable of now? Could he leap tall buildings in a single bound?  
"...and I don't know how they expect these peasants to keep producing efficiently without any kind of financial incentive. Don't get me wrong, I remember feudalism, but I also remember how beating the peasants too much just made them angry enough to rebel even if you went ahead and killed them for it...."  
Was he expected to lead that kind of rebellion here and make it succeed? If he'd properly pieced together what Buffy had said, these lesser Exalted, the hereditary Dragon-Blooded, were in charge of this empire. He was just one guy, and there were thousands of them, and...  
Come to think of it, Buffy must have felt like this every day for the last five years.  
"Surely they see they could do so much better if they offered the peasants a good 401K plan...."  
Xander looked at her. "Maybe I can get them to see it," he said. She blinked at him. "Somebody's gotta do it. Might as well be us."  
*****  
"Look at the Loom. Seriously, Ayesha, _look_."  
Ayesha Ura looked, and wondered what the hell Chejop thought they could do, even together. "Cascade failure. Errors building upon errors. But you see that it's trying to compensate." She pointed out the intruders who had caused the problem. Essence was building around them, shifting the weave.  
Chejop just shook his head. "There's no way that can work, Ayesha. I know you oppose me; I know your previous incarnation opposed me. But at least acknowledge that the Solars were _thoroughly mad_ by the end. You thought you saw a way to work through that madness, and I understand your position, that there was a chance. If we guided them. We are not guiding these interlopers. We have no easy way of even contacting them. They are not integrated into the Loom of Fate. Worse, look at the first of them, the most powerful. She's no Solar."  
"She was once," Ayesha argued. "She's not an akuma; she has the same free will all of us do. She needs to know what's happening. What her arrival has triggered. We can persuade her to make the right choice."  
"Or we can kill them and end the disruption to the Tapestry."  
"The same choices as always, Chejop. What if that _doesn't_ end it? Those Exaltations are loose for a reason. The ones they were meant for have been shunted aside or killed by the disruption to Fate. They're congregating to the disturbance to repair it. For once, Chejop, let them. Let them do what they were meant to do."  
Chejop Kejak set his jaw. "The Exaltations were _meant_ to kill worlds. They did so, very efficiently. And had we not stopped them, they'd have killed their own. Our own."  
Ayesha sighed and raised an eyebrow. "Okay. I'll not dispute the point. But then tell me: what's _that_ doing with them?"  
*****  
Cordy watched Dawn curiously. "She just keeps looking south. Even when we had to make that big detour through the maze, she always knew which way south was."  
"She has a good sense of direction," said Spike. He was a terrible liar, she remembered that much. Cordelia had never understood why, given that he couldn't feel guity about it. "Anyway, there's plenty to stare at back south. Hey, she's not looking that way now." He pointed to Dawn, who was now staring at the Penitent.  
"Yeah, well, who wouldn't look at that thing sometimes. Also...check out our four biggest mystical types _and_ Buffy all studying it. I don't think it's just a monument."  
"Anyone could've guessed that," said Spike. "Even if it's a religious icon, that's a lot of work. It's bigger than the Sphinx or the Pyramids, and I'm sure they took years or decades. Must've been carved from a mountain." He paused. "Cordelia? Something the matter?"  
Something was the matter all right. Cordelia rubbed her temples. This one was just a headachy vision, not one of the nasty ones where she felt the injuries of the wounded, but it didn't look good. "This isn't the kind of place you expect squid-people to live, is it?"  
"Squid-people? Nope, not unless it's fertile here cause there's an ocean underground. Hey, maybe there's an ocean underground?"  
"Well, I don't know, but we should go ahead and warn Buffy about it." It was the least they could do. Wonder what it had to do with injustice and the helpless, though?  
*****  
"Buffy."  
Buffy came to a halt. It wasn't often that someone, even one of her friends, blocked her path like that, and she barely knew Fred Burkle. "Yeah?"  
"Buffy, we have to do something. _You_ have to do something. It's you and Xander here, and Xander barely even knows what he's doing. At least you've been the Slayer for years." Buffy wondered if Fred really understood just how few worse things she could've said right now. "They keep _slaves_ here, Buffy. We can't just walk through here and ignore what's happening."  
Buffy groaned. "Fred, I don't want to, believe me, but surely Xander's told you this is out of our league. You don't understand the scale of the problem. Anyway, I _have_ to get out of here before the prophecy comes true and I free the Old Ones. Trust me, that'll make things a lot worse."  
"How much worse can it get, Buffy? I was in a hell dimension and it wasn't much worse than this." The pain on Fred's face...Fred was still young, still pretty, but sometimes her face filled with worry lines that made her look a thousand years old.  
"I promise you, Fred, there's worse." She glanced at Angel. Though, to be honest, her own brief experience in hell hadn't been too different. An industrial scheme rather than an agricultural one. Still, surely it hadn't been forced labor that had turned Angel into a feral monster. "At least no one's being eaten."  
Fred stared at her in horror. "Buffy, you don't even know that. For all you know these people are the main course every Sunday. Why did you have to mention it?" Surely that hadn't happened in Pylea, but Angel _had_ used the term "cow-slave". Maybe it had? Fred surely hadn't been in any danger of being cut up like a side of beef, at her size, but that didn't mean she hadn't seen it done.  
"Fred, I swear to you that if I had any idea how to go about freeing these people I'd do it. Surely you know me that well. Have you got some kind of plan?"  
Fred pouted. Well, that was the best way Buffy could think to describe the sullen look she got. "Have you thought of asking Wesley and Gunn? They made it work in Pylea. Xander told me this empire was bigger, but still, there must be some way."  
"Fred, there are lots of innocent people here who'll suffer in a revolution, do you reallize that? If we try something like that people will die, and there's no guarantee it'll work. You've got to think through what you're talking--" Fred's eyes bulged in fury and she spun away. Well, at least Buffy had gotten through to her that far.  
Fred stalked off into the field toward an overseer. "Fred! Wait, what are you doing?" Buffy darted after her, leaping over the hedge that Fred had avoided.  
Fred spun back for a moment. "What you won't. I'm not going to walk through this place and gawk the way you are." And she seized the overseer's whip. The big man looked too stunned to react until Fred slammed him in the stomach with the huge butt of it and he doubled over.  
"Fred! Fred, please, listen to me. We can't risk making a scene here!" She seized Fred by the wrist and--  
*****  
It wasn't as if she had any chance. Even Xander had been a hero for years. Fred? She was a failed physics student and an escaped slave from hell. A different hell. She spent her nights scribbling equations on the walls of her cave--er, her room--until she could stay awake no longer and passed out clinging to Feigenbaum.  
Buffy grabbed her by the wrist and she knew she'd done what she could. Buffy would see she was serious and now she and Xander would do what had to be done....  
Buffy began to apologize to the overseer as she dragged Fred away. So Fred did the only thing she could think of on short notice. She balled up her fist and punched Buffy in the face. Heck, she wasn't even surprised when Buffy grabbed her wrist again before she could connect. Something had to get through to her--  
**You could do something yourself.**  
Great, now she was hearing voices in her head again. Darn flashbacks. She did what she'd always done in Pylea. _What do you mean?_  
**You're a survivor. You work it out.**  
_I can't liberate one work gang, let alone the million slaves in an empire._  
**Because Buffy has the power, but not you? And yet you stand up to this one girl you think can take on an empire.**  
_Someone has to._  
**So do it, stranger. And know that Luna has your back.**  
*****  
Nobody should have been able to wriggle loose from Buffy's grip. Surely not this little slip of a physicist who didn't look as if she'd had anything fattening since puberty. Somehow Fred did, though. Her arm writhed, flexed, and slipped out of Buffy's hand like a greased pig. Had Fred ever tried to catch a greased pig, down there in Texas? She'd have to ask.  
Buffy tried to catch hold of her arm again, but it whipped about like a tentacle and slapped her in the face. Fred must have had more nails than Buffy realized; she felt them rake across her face, catching, scratching. She really didn't want to hurt the girl, but they'd already drawn way too much attention to themselves. They'd be lucky if Fred wasn't hauled off to jail for street brawling in a farm town like this.  
She was going to have to try a sucker-punch. She'd be gentle. She swung her fist.  
And Fred caught it.  
A slimy tentacle wrapped around Buffy's arm just before her fist hit a razor-suckered pad, just sharp enough to hurt. Fred's face was changing, too. Her hair slid from her head, the back of which rose up in a great finned crest. Her mouth stretched into a sharp beak. Fred's body and legs twisted, flexing bonelessly, and more suckers grew up the back of her legs.  
A silver-bright disk flared to life on her inhuman forehead.  
They spoke as one, though hardly with one intent.  
"Holy shit!"  
*****  
Xander's eyes bulged. From the symbol on Fred's forehead, this must be yet another manifestation of being Exalted. Clearly the shapechanging wasn't designed to mesh with the environment, though. This arid farm country was no place to turn into a squid-person, however useful those tentacles might be.  
And there was going to be more trouble. Buffy had meant to stay incognito here; she'd said there would be more of these mini-Exalts running around the Lap, and now those not-quite-human faces were popping up all over the crowd. With a sigh, he leapt forward and grabbed both girls' arms before they could resume fighting.  
"Hey! I thought we'd agreed not to do this kind of thing in public, Buffy!"  
Both of them glared at him. Then Buffy turned and glared at Fred again, and Fred opened her mouth--well, her beak--probably to start protesting again about leaving the slaves.  
"It's too late for that now! We're out in the open and now we're going to have to fight and let the others get away. Buffy, you're going to have to take charge, because neither of us know anything about our powers, but I expect you to _take_ it. Clear? The rest of you guys, slip out with the slaves if you can. Anybody who wants to be free, follow those guys!" Finally he turned back to Buffy. "I'm guessing we want to lead them on a chase before we get away. Ideas?"  
Buffy groaned. "I'm sorry, guys. I was trying to get Fred to not be conspicuous, but I guess that ship has sailed. Metaphorically speaking."  
Fred shrugged her tentacles, not having bothered to change back yet. Xander hoped it wasn't going to be too hot for her. "Too late to fight over it. Besides, you probably did me a favor. Er...guys? The fuzz are here."  
"I see about a dozen of them, so guys...follow me!" Buffy spun on her heel and dashed off the road into the fields. Fred glanced at Xander.  
"Last one out of sight's a rotten egg!" They ran.  
*****  
Tepet Lisara was, in all honesty, glad she wasn't here with her whole dragon. Unfortunately, she did have another five Dragon-Blooded with her, and six more elite mortals in tow. It wasn't exactly the best situation to get her reputation back. Still, there _were_ three of the Anathema.  
She flared her anima into a corona of flame. "After them!" She hadn't heard of Anathema tending to run from combat, but they looked young. And she dashed off into the field. For some reason the other officers hesitated before following her into the stand of corn. Didn't they realize how important it was to deal with Anathema?  
*****  
Buffy was pounding her way down the rows when she realized she wasn't just hearing feet hitting the ground. A crackling roar filled the air behind her. She started to turn, then thought better of it and extended her other senses first.  
**Insignificant Embers Intuition**  
Well, there was irony for you. There was nothing insignificant about the blaze roaring up behind her. Did these Dragon-Blooded not even care about burning their crops? Buffy's ideas about where food came from were a little vague, but she'd lived through a drought or two. "Guys, you can't take this heat. Especially not you, Fred. I'm going to try and hold them for a minute while you get out of the field. Whoever's leading this detachment is...no offense, Fred...out of her mind."  
Fred murmured something to the cornstalks about being sorry--was that an Exalted thing too?--and dragged Xander through the rows.  
Buffy took a deep breath. This was going to suck.  
**Viridian Legend Exoskeleton**  
The leader, wreathed in a flaming aura, drew a truly gigantic sword and charged at her. Buffy braced herself. Her skin was still flaking off; she was going to get burned, though maybe not too badly. To her surprise, the flames surrounded her without searing her skin, though her clothes caught fire almost at once. When was the last time anyone had tried to burn her, anyway?   
Her opponent brought her sword down--it looked like a ginormous meat cleaver--and Buffy danced out of the way. There was that, at least--a sword that big was too heavy to swing quickly, even for Exalted. By the time the rest of her opponents got into position, her skin was nice and shiny and ought to stand up to the impact. She made a token attempt to beat the fire out of her clothes, but they fell about her in burning rags. "I just bought those, you cheap Human Torch knockoff!" At least the flames were keeping the ordinary soldiers at bay.  
The woman in flames only sneered at her as her counterparts closed in. They seemed a little more sensible, not having set themselves on fire, but the aura wasn't hurting them. Each of them raised a sword--a more sensible design, Buffy thought, but still huge--and closed on her.  
Swords didn't intimidate Buffy, not even ones this large, though she did have to keep telling herself that she was all armored up. Where the hell was she going to find some more clothes? A sword came raking across her belly, and she seized it, yanked it away from its owner, and tossed it aside, forcing the next soldier to dodge out of the way. She leapt forward into a cartwheel straight through a blazing patch of corn, kicking two more soldiers aside on the way. That left the fifth--she was a little concerned about her odds here--whom she collided with and slammed him into the ground.  
"Turn, Anathema! Turn and face Tepet Lisara!"  
Buffy turned with a grumble in her throat. "Look, Lisara, I've danced this dance before with--" Who had Xander said? "Weylan and Yudani. They couldn't take me down and neither can you." She couldn't even remember fighting them; she wasn't sure she had. But if it helped keep this Lisara off-balance....  
Lisara lifted the gigantic cleaver again and brought it down. Buffy took a deep breath and caught the massive thing between her hands. Angel's sword. She had caught Angel's sword this way. Of course, it hadn't been wider than she was and as tall. Buffy heaved, knocking Lisara off-balance, and immediately had to swing a hand backwards to deflect another incoming sword strike, which clanged off her arm. "You know, you guys are starting to get on my nerves." Where had Xander and Fred gotten to? At least they were out of the blaze.  
*****  
Fred had reverted back to human form as soon as she dodged back out of the cornfield. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to have shaken these wyld-hunters or whatever it was they called themselves, and though she had the clear intuition that she could make herself all squid this really wasn't the place. Though there was a river around here somewhere; there had to be for all these crops.  
Xander shouted at a scurrying group of slaves, warning them that safety was in a different direction from where they were running, and they turned, but slaves weren't going to be any help to them, and she suspected the wild hunters were harder to persuade than ordinary people without superpowers. She hoped that Buffy hadn't ended up with all of them pursuing her after they were supposed to run away as a group, but if they were all going to catch on fire that way a squid wasn't the best thing to fight them as and she wasn't sure what other powers she even had yet.  
What she needed was something to put together, something to _build_ , but all she saw were farm implements, nothing even so complicated as a toaster. Now there were plenty of rakes and shovels and hoes lying around, and they'd make great polearms if that were what she needed. No good. Where was electricity when you needed it? Of course these guys could probably make it, but that was no good. They might not even know what it was.  
A mill. What could she do with a mill? Wind would work. Water might be better. There were water mills as early as the late Roman Empire, and she'd probably feel better sunk in the water even if she stayed with half-squid instead of full. The biology of that had to be seriously bizarre.  
A lot more of the corn than she had hoped was going up in flames. That was going to be no good at all. Stupid wild-hunters! They were killing their own people here just to get Buffy. And, well, her and Xander, but it was Buffy they were mostly chasing after.  
"Xander!" She waved him toward her. "Get over here, and, um, see if you can get me some help!"  
*****  
Buffy was just trying not to think about the fact that she was stark naked in the cornfield. As long as she was a brass statue it was almost kind of okay, which was weird and didn't make a lot of sense but there it was. But sooner or later she was going to go back to being just a girl in her skin--  
She dodged a burst of fire, which of course set another patch of wheat ablaze. "Yeah, you people are seriously not familiar with the phrase 'destroy the village in order to save it'. Unless you are, in which case you have some issues with priorities." Her reading on politics and geography was really sketchy but she was pretty sure the Lap was _the_ main agricultural zone for the whole empire. If they didn't get the fire under control there'd be a major famine.  
Did that make it her fault? Their fault? Okay, technically Fred had started it, but she was just trying to free some slaves.  
"Better to see the Lap burn than to let you spread heresy," Lisara spouted, trying to close on Buffy with her gigantic cleaver of a sword. Buffy rolled her eyes. Okay, no more blaming herself. Infernal or no Infernal, she wasn't the one making the inferno here.  
She charged at Tepet Lisara. Buffy could catch swords between her hands a few more times, if it came to that, and damned if she was going to let these crazies burn this world's grain supply. If this wasn't a hell dimension already they were doing a good job of turning it into one. Lisara brought the sword down, and Buffy raised her hands, and...had to dodge a blast of swirling air. Her ankle twisted, not hurting in the least but throwing her off balance, and with a grunt she flung her hands in front of her face and gave a sort of hard push she felt in her mind as well as her muscles....  
**Invulnerable Wounding Futility**  
The cleaver bounced off her wrists, twisting in Lisara's grasp, and bashed obnoxious fire chick in the face with its hilt. Lisara stared at Buffy as if soldier-girl had just managed to fall on her own butt while doing calisthenics. Her nose looked crooked and there was a nasty gash on her forehead where the back of the sword had hit hard enough to tear the skin.  
"Hey, Lisara, you may have heard this one before, or maybe not depending on how much time travel I'm doing here, but...stop hitting yourself!" Lisara blinked twice before snarling something--probably a curse. Buffy didn't have time to think about it; two more supersoldiers were closing in on her waving smaller swords that were probably just as nasty and twice as fast. She just hoped Xander and Fred had managed to lose the rest of them.  
*****  
Fred was pretty sure that she'd been reported as an anathema (and was there a maranatha in there somewhere?). That wasn't going to be her priority just now. For one thing, the soldiers who weren't organizing a bucket brigade were trying to use their auras to help douse the flames in the cornfield. The farmers Xander had recruited were doing what he said, but that didn't stop them from glaring at the two of them. At least they were pragmatic; if the devil told you how to save your cornfield, and it didn't involve falling down and worshipping him, you picked up your tools and went to work.  
She could really have used some hard rubber hoses, but she was going to be able to make do with the treated leather the farmers had brought up. "Okay, fasten that on here! And here!" Xander repeated her instructions for those who didn't hear--or pretended not to--and they got to work. She just hoped she was going to be able to move the thing when it was done. She had a water mill, a windmill, and a river, and the whole contraption was crude but hopefully effective. "Xander, you got the pulleys?"  
"Pulley one is in place. Pulley two needs one more bolt. There!" Well, it had better be ready. She kicked the valve, letting it spin. The water mill drove river water in, the windmill forced it out, and the pair of them together ought to....yes! Yesyesyes! Fred tugged the windmill to the left, and the massive spray of water shifted, spraying the far edge of the flame, soaking it. She could feel the burn in her shoulders, but the windmill had been made to be mobile, and it turned as she pulled it, arcing back to the right.  
This might be a hell dimension, but there was no way in hell or out of it she was letting these people starve.  
*****  
Wesley only wished the slaves listened to his orders the way they listened to Xander's. Or Buffy's, for that matter. Still, if they were going to be free it wouldn't do for them to only follow orders. Now he just had to figure out how to get them out of town before the soldiers finished fighting the fire and chasing Buffy, Xander, and Fred.  
"Giles, we need to go right! No, I know it's clear over there but there's a detachment of soldiers on the way!" He leapt down from the pole--some sort of signal device? a broken windmill? part of a huge fence around that mansion ahead?--whatever the hell it was, and took off in the direction he meant the newly liberated to go. The fire was starting to ebb, but an arc of it was still moving toward the road, and anyone who didn't run was going to have the best escape route cut off.  
Couldn't have that. It wasn't proper to let the people you'd rescued die when you didn't have to.  
*****  
Buffy had them on the ropes.  
Well, two of them were down, two more of them had flared auras in ways they didn't seem to want, a fifth had taken off out of the cornfield, and Tepet Lisara was sweating like a stuck pig. Did stuck pigs really sweat that much? Anyway in someone who could set themselves on fire it clearly didn't mean she was too hot.  
On the other hand, Buffy's own caste mark was burning bright green on her forehead. She'd had to catch a couple more strikes from that stupid gigantic cleaver. There was still no sign of Fred or Xander, though there _was_ an immense firehose arc of water swinging back and forth over the blaze Lisara had started. This didn't look like the sort of place that had fire trucks, so maybe it was her friends' work. Lisara was still on fire, and the drenching water didn't seem able to put her out, though she steamed like a teakettle every time it passed.  
Maybe it was time to show the better part of valor, which was...what was it? Oh, yeah. Running like mad. She took off, charging directly at Lisara, who raised that big honking sword...and jumped.  
Somehow Buffy had expected to come down. She felt something under her feet, at least, and she took off running before she registered that the path ahead was nice and clear when it should have been full of cornstalks. Should she look down? Probably not. Buffy looked down anyway.  
 **Unimpeded Perfection of Exertion**  
She was running _on top of_ the cornstalks, dashing across a field of plants that should have crumpled under her weight. She saw her foot land on a leaf that should have bent and fallen, saw it spring back up as if she was light as a feather, as if the leaf were a trampoline. Well. There was definitely some compensation for being an Infernal going on here.  
Water sprayed her in the back. She shook it off and kept running as the great stream of water swung ahead of her. Steam rose behind her as Lisara, at least, kept pace with her. Burning Girl might not be able to run on top of plants, but her aura let her sear a path through them, even as soaked as they were getting. That said, Buffy was starting to worry that they were going to get beyond the range of Fred's improvised fire hose. Not only would another huge section of the fields go up in smoke, but there was the risk that the fire would cut Buffy's track right out from under her.  
The arcing spray of water made its way back toward her over the cornfield. Beyond it she could see the Penitent, really just the leg of the gargantuan statue. Of course, if she got up there somehow she'd only end up inside the city, but even in the Lap there was probably someone she could contact. Or she could get out again once the coast was clear, though that would probably mean losing the Scoobies and Team Angel again. How exactly she was going to get in, well, that was another matter. She kicked off, trying to speed up, and found herself climbing a hill, which made no sense whatsoever. Did she seriously dare looking down again? Sure, what the hell, why not?  
She was running on _water_.  
 **Foam-Dancing Haste**  
Not even on the surface of a lake. She was running up the spray of water from Fred's improvised hose, trailing lines of green light behind her feet, scattering droplets as she went. Glancing along the arc she saw a huge windmill that probably wasn't just blowing the water like a fan, though that was certainly the way it looked from here. She offered Fred some silent congratulations, and probably Xander too; he was good at construction.  
Even running on water wasn't exactly giving her a lot of added room, and she was getting higher. There was going to be a drop-off coming up unless she headed for the windmill. Or she could  
 **Sky-Vaulting Surge**  
jump?  
It wasn't as if she'd never taken a running jump before. And she was good at it, no question, even superhuman. Had she ever really done anything like this, though, hurtling through the air trailing green light tinged with glints of metallic yellow? The Penitent still towered above her, but she was heading for the leg, at least, coming up on the great stone wall, and for all the height she'd gained she was still far, far too low. Coming down already, legs still pumping, and she was going to hit the  
 **Gravity-Rebuking Grace**  
wall!  
Rising again, legs carrying her up what had to be a sheer cliff, if you could call the carved side of a statue a cliff, and she had hit hard, absolutely, but she was still running, still climbing. She was going to make it. She was seriously going to get up and over the leg of the statue and into the city she'd seen glimpses of. Not that she was too sure that was the best place to be, but maybe she could manage to lose her pursuers there.  
God, she was running up the side of a freaking statue. If she wasn't getting away now, how could she possibly escape? Buffy looked back. Up, it felt like.  
Tepet Lisara was airborne, propelled by a column of fire and still coming after her, searing her way across the sea of wheat and corn. She was far behind, but she could see Buffy and where she was going. Buffy could feel her chest starting to burn; she couldn't keep up this pace forever. If she stopped before she reached the top, she would fall, she was certain of that. If she reached it, she'd find herself in a maze of streets, but she was glowing brighter than she ever remembered glowing before, and that would take some time to fade. She would find some way to hide. If.  
And Tepet Lisara suddenly wobbled, the fire that was carrying her forward sputtering. Going out. Lisara was falling. Buffy seemed to hear the distant echo of a splash. Rice. She'd crossed a flooded field of rice. That was some weakness. Buffy reminded herself that she had weaknesses of her own, and probably didn't know them all yet. Her lungs were on fire. Her legs felt wobbly. That was weakness enough.  
Over to the side she saw some kind of rush toward the ankles of the statue. That was where the gates were, probably, the nearest one at least. There would have to be tunnels. Stairs, probably, or a very long ramp. Buffy was going straight up the side at a run. In the city, even the rest of the supersoldiers probably didn't know yet what was going on. She could hide there. She could...  
She was at the top. She was up and over the wall, in the outskirts of the city. Next to her rose great blocky buildings, warehouses maybe. Buffy's last few steps had taken her to the top of a little wall facing the edge of the statue, a guard against anyone careless enough to slide off the side. She slipped down the inside, crouching there, breathing harder than she could ever remember in her life. Her forehead stung, and golden-green fire glowed around her, but here the narrow alleyway between buildings was empty. She could rest here, catch her breath, as long as the blaze died down before anyone came along. She'd have to find clothes. But she could do that.  
Buffy looked up. She had run all this way, barrelled across a mile or more of corn, run up the side of a statue taller than any skyscraper. And she was still only on top of a leg. Towering above her was the real summit of the thing, the Penitent's damaged face miles higher than she'd already come. Something about it called to her. Something else about it grated on her like the jagged edges of a fractured bone grinding against each other. She could maybe go up there. The great engine might fire up for her, or it might chew her up and spit her out.  
She sighed. Not now. Not yet. Maybe not ever, if she got home soon. And even if this was a power that could send her there, she needed to bring her friends with her. This wasn't a place she wanted to leave any of them, least of all Xander and Fred, who were here in a strange world with much less understanding of their power than she'd ever had.  
The blaze was already fading. The brass on her skin began to corrode, then flake away, leaving only pale pink flesh. There would be wash on the line somewhere. Maybe clothes stored away. Sure, most of what she'd seen growing here was grain, but there were vegetables, and more importantly there was cotton. Somewhere here they made clothes.  
The warehouses might be full of workers, but surely not all of them. The one on her right looked dark and quiet. She prodded the door, and it opened on shadow. All right then. "See you soon, guys," she murmured to herself. No question about it.  
*****  
It wasn't a navigable river by any means, but not navigable and not swimmable weren't remotely the same thing. A huge swath of the fire was out, and wyld-hunters were bringing the scattered sections Fred couldn't reach under control. There'd be a few months of minor hardship, maybe, but anyone with sense would have huge granaries somewhere in a place like this. Some poor people might starve; she hoped not. No one else was likely to.  
Fred let her arms burst out into tentacles again, grabbed Xander out of the windmill tower, and leapt into the river. Rendesvousing with Team Angel and hopefully some escaped slaves would be the easy part, preferably before the soldiers caught any of the slaves and dragged them back to work. With a little luck the soldiers would keep looking for anathema and the slaves could scatter into smaller parties and go somewhere safe.  
Then would come the hard part. She was pretty sure she'd seen Buffy take a flying leap at that statue. If she was ok (please be okay, you were cool) she was inside the city and they were probably still wild-hunting her. Either Buffy was going to have to get out, or they were going to have to get in and find her. At least Xander's powers were inconspicuous.  
She didn't have all that far she could travel down this river, unfortunately. It was broad and, unfortunately, shallow. Fred skimmed beneath the surface as long as she could, lifting Xander up for a quick breath whenever he tapped her shoulder, but she didn't think she'd gone a mile when the river just plain got too shallow to swim any longer.  
Fred surfaced, changing back, and pulled Xander to the bank. He coughed and sputtered and finally asked, "Where the frilly heck did you take us?"  
She shrugged. "Away."  
A girl watching them from the bank cut in. "Where you need to be." Fred stared up at her. That wasn't the kind of answer you got from random strangers. That was a seer's answer, and in her limited experience seers were bad news. "Most people I don't give my real name, but you can call me Shaia. You guys look like you need help."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: At this point the question may well arise as to what kind of Charm set I'm giving Buffy. No, it's not simply a random array of whatever superpowers I see fit to hand out to make her badass. I began with the presumption that Buffy has unknowingly been a Slayer caste Infernal for five years, the same as the length of time that the Infernals have been in Creation anyway. She has the Ebon Dragon as a favored Yozi (Malfeas, as she said, is lousy at sneaking). She also has quite a few Adorjani Charms, though no really exotic ones. (Technically, at this point in the story she doesn't actually have all of them yet, but they are accounted for.) She has First Excellencies for both Malfeas and the Ebon Dragon, which is usually a no-no in terms of points, but those two don't have a lot of overlap.
> 
> I then took as a working assumption that an episode was equivalent to a session. This averaged out to a fairly high level of experience (I don't recall quite how much), and I used the elder Exalt tables to work out how many Charms she should have in addition to her starting set (thirty). This seemed like a lot, and I was surprised to have to use the elder Exalt rules, so I used the Abyssals in the Scroll of Exalts as a comparison (since they have very similar experience charts and the Infernals there are all starting level). Most of them were weaker than Buffy, but a few were considerably more powerful even though no Abyssals have been around for more than five years (most notably Weeping Raiton Cast Aside, of course). The only remaining fudge was with the level of experience characters are normally allowed to keep banked. There I decided to let the demands of the story hold sway, but an easy explanation is that Buffy has never had a tutor who really understands what she can do. Having those two different Excellencies hasn't been good for her development either. Buffy either has or will soon manifest about forty charms from her current experience. She has Essence 4. I tried not to get too deep into stats beyond that. Everyone else who Exalts in the course of the series will be at starting level for their type.


	4. Masquerade

"Shaia?" The dark-haired woman whose rowboat they'd boarded ignored him, studying the water. She removed a small pouch from her belt and tossed in a pinch of white powder. Salt?

White swirled up from the river. White splashed into the air. The world drowned in white. "We call this Mirror-Shattering Method." Shaia looked him in the eye. "We don't usually explain in detail, but you people would seem to be a special case. I'm not sure where you're from, but it's not around here, is it?"

Fred shook her head. "None of us, definitely not."

Shaia just nodded. "I am another kind of Exalted which you may not be familiar with, specifically a Sidereal. We're the Chosen of Fate. For centuries, we advised the other Celestial Exalted-the Solars and Lunars. When they fell to the Dragon-Blooded, we...took on a more hidden role." She picked up the oars and began to row.

"What about Infernals?" Xander asked.

"There weren't any at the time. No Abyssals either. All the Exalts at the time served the gods, not the Yozis or the Neverborn. They were...far from perfect, but they didn't start out corrupt."

Fred winced. "Is Buffy evil?" Xander suspected she was sharing the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach at that idea, no matter how short a time she'd known Buffy. Imagining Buffy as evil was simultaneously impossible and, well, terrifying.

"I wouldn't say that exactly," Shaia said with a small frown. "She doesn't have to be. Still, it's going to be a lot harder for her to be good than bad. It's in her nature, and the nature of her powers."

Xander bit his lip in thought. But hadn't Buffy always had these powers? Or had Cyan-or Buffy-lied about that? "How did you know we were here?"

"I followed your threads in the Loom of Fate. You weren't native here, but it's integrating you all as time passes. Except for Buffy. It seems as if Infernals are among the small number of types of being who are outside of Fate entirely. " Shaia paused in her rowing for a few moments before turning the boat to the right a bit. Xander wondered how she could navigate in this whiteout. "In any case, I believed I should get in touch with you and offer my advice. You aren't the first Solar I've gathered up, Xander, but you know the least about what you are."

"And me?" Fred dabbled her fingers in the water as if wondering whether she was expected to jump in.

"I don't have as much experience with Lunars, but there's someone I can deliver you to who can teach you, a very old Lunar who isn't that far from my work, as these things go. He's called Leviathan."

"Leviathan?"

Shaia chuckled. "He spends virtually all his time in the shape of a gigantic orca. At least he's not a sperm whale. It could be hard for you to converse, but who knows? Perhaps that'll persuade him to take human form. I'm surprised he doesn't just forget he was once a man."

Fred shivered. "Sorry. I'm just...I guess that's the point of sending me to him, isn't it? It's all really new to me."

"We've all been there, dear. Don't worry, I'll keep tabs. And I'll make sure you and Xander here stay in touch." The white seas tore, and blue-green replaced them. Fred gave a little jump. The rowboat was surrounded by ocean in all directions, without the slightest sign of land. Shaia gave her a little wink. "No fear, new blood. Sometimes you have to do things one step at a time."

The ocean shuddered. An immense gout of foam shot up not a hundred yards from them, white again, though not the unblemished white of the unthinkable sea they had just traveled. The prow of a small ship pierced the surface, rising, rising, a metallic hull unlike anything she had expected to encounter in this primitive hellhole of a dimension.

"Welcome aboard the  _Charybdis_ -class undersea courier  _Water Lily's Unseen Root_."

* * *

Slowly Buffy crawled back towards full awareness. A rank smell filled her nostrils, mildew and decay. The blankets she was hiding under had grown grey with mold. She pulled back the covers from her face and peered out. The same mildew stink emanated from the entire box. Only the clothing she'd donned before crawling into hiding remained pristine.

"Blech. As side effects go, this one is downright rotten. At least it doesn't ruin my personal fashion choices." The warehouse was, as she had hoped, still in shadow. She'd suspected as much from the boarded-up windows and dusty crates, but you never knew. The next box over was untouched by the contamination, and she was convinced she hadn't gone to sleep in a bed of filth. It had to be that sickly green glow.

She felt stronger. Sleep seemed somehow more refreshing here than anything she'd experienced in years, but more than that, she'd been bone-weary when she hid here. She'd used more power than she could ever remember doing, putting on that display. Even now, she didn't feel a hundred percent, but she could put up a respectable fight if she had to.

Crawling carefully to one of the windows, she pried loose a board and peeked out. Moonlight glimmered in the empty streets. So far she'd been lucky. If it was luck, and not another power she didn't realize she had. Lisara should have returned to the city and told the guard where she'd been seen climbing the Penitent, and there should be guards of some sort patrolling the area. But no one had found her while she evidently slept for hours.

Silently she padded her way to the door and opened it just a crack. No one was here either. It was possible that the patrols had missed her in the warren of buildings. It was possible that Lisara had been too proud to admit she'd engaged an Anathema and lost her, or even that she'd been arrested for setting the crops ablaze and hadn't gotten to tell her story. And finally, it was possible that a guard was posted to wait for Buffy to appear again.

They would have to wait for a good long while. Well, in theory. "Time to try something new...again. Only without the net, this time." Buffy closed her eyes and concentrated. She shouldn't have to do that once she had the hang of it, but this wasn't something she should be doing in the open anyway, so what the hey.

Though she already stood in shadow, deeper darkness enveloped her. Best to look as unlike herself as possible. The manual had said that this was an illusion, but it would fool touch as easily as sight or hearing. Just how far away from "Buffy Summers" could she get?

Natives of the Blessed Isle tended to look Asian, while Southerners seemed to grow darker the further south you got. Here in the Lap, there were a fair amount of-reflexively she thought "African-Americans", but of course they were no such thing. Still, she couldn't quite stop herself from thinking of that as blackface. She compromised; there'd been Thai students in a couple of her lit classes in college. And...just this once, to see how good the effect was...she modeled her new look on one of the guys. It wasn't as if it were real.

Shadows receded, leaving behind a new shape. If only she could see her face. "Not any taller. Oh well." Her clothes had altered-wait, did that mean she didn't need to have stolen these? Too late to worry over that-into a simple but colorful loose red shirt and greyish slacks. The former looked awfully blousy, but she'd seen men wearing it. It was hot down here. She lifted it and found a solid slab of muscle. "Stupid subconscious. I wasn't going for beefcake." Even to her own touch, the illusion felt real; cupping her pecs, she felt hard muscle with just a touch of fat, and only the faintest twinge of arousal even if she plucked at the nipples.  _Ok, enough of that!_

Cyan would laugh at her for not sticking her hand down her pants and testing that part of the illusion too. No, Cyan was pragmatic; she would agree that Buffy shouldn't do it till she had a private room somewhere. though at that point she'd certainly say go to town on it. And probably bring in an attractive stranger. Well, aside from the stranger part she might take that advice; it'd been a couple of months since Riley left her, and not having had time to think on such things didn't mean she didn't miss them now. If she could find a bed without roaches.

Buffy laughed softly at herself. She could turn her skin to brass, run up the side of a statue, and change her appearance by willing it. Surely she could find a clean bed if she put her mind to it. The main problem was that she still felt somewhat drained. If she put out only a little more effort, she was sure that mark on her forehead would start glowing again, and so much for her disguise if that happened.

Out onto the street. The stars had a hard, bright glitter she'd never seen before, and the full moon rode high. Whatever industry the Lap had-that the Realm had-it didn't produce much air pollution. She could hear the distant revelry of partygoers in the inns, but that didn't mean a lot. She walked around the corner and right into a guardsman.

"Out late, aren't we, fella?" His voice was sharp but not angry; he must be only faintly suspicious.

"I am. Not a problem, is it?" she said boldly. She couldn't think of a story, but she'd heard that was the best way to get away with things: just act like you belonged there.

The guard lifted an eyebrow. "An Anathema ran  _up the side of the Penitent_  and disappeared into this area of town. Or hadn't you heard? Two others are lurking somewhere in the province near the city and could be here as well."

A strange notion struck her.  **Malfeas Essence Overwhelming**  "And so I have merchandise to check, once I finally get away from my business. I have every right to be here, and I'll thank you not to interfere with me."

The guard threw up his hands. "Sorry, sir. You look very young for your age. I hope everything is all right at the warehouse." He backed away, fidgeting nervously, and turned off down the street.

Who was it again that said Malfeas couldn't sneak?

* * *

"Willow, are you seriously proposing that we return to the city?" Giles felt an outpouring of dread at the notion. Who would break cover this time, and bring the authorities down on them once more? He suspected there would be little mercy extended here.

"I'm saying we don't have much of a choice. We need supplies, and I'm the last heavy-hitter you have. If I'm even that here. No offense Angel, Spike. At night you guys might take on a couple of the mini-supers, maybe, but we need to go in the daytime. We've lost Buffy, Xander, and Fred to who knows where, but Buffy at least got into town."

"And you think your magicks are up to the task?" Wesley peered at her suspiciously. "Perhaps more of us should accompany you."

"I'll take Tara, but in all seriousness the rest of you should stay here with the refugees. If someone does turn up, we'll need you to get them away again." She turned her mouth down in frustration. "Good luck. We're running out of superheroes. No offense, but we kind of need them in this world."

* * *

Fred gazed at the control room in wonder. God, she was in her element at last. Okay, in all honesty she didn't actually understand the controls, but at least she felt she icould/i understand them, given a little effort. It was good to see Buffy's story about the ancient high tech era verified, though...

"This stuff looks awfully shiny. You keep it well-maintained."

"In fact we do," Shaia agreed. "We don't have Solars to build new magitech these days, so production is very slow when we can get it done at all."

"Can't the-" Xander hesitated. "Shaia, what's the term for the mini-Exalts? Buffy didn't pick that one up, and we keep stumbling over them."

Shaia's laughter was like the ringing of bells. "Dragon-Blooded. Or Terrestrials. And yes, to some limited degree the Dragon-Blooded can be more intelligent and apt at engineering than any normal human. If circumstances had been different, the greatest wonders of the Old Realm would have been lost, but we would have maintained our heavy industry, at least. The Contagion put paid to that, and...a variety of problems...have prevented meaningful recovery."

"Contagion? Look, maybe this is asking too much," Xander said, striding back and forth between consoles, "but is there some kind of information-transfer spell that would tell us what's what around here?"

Shaia laughed. She laughed a lot. It made Fred feel comfortable around her. "In fact there is. I wish I knew it. It'd make my job a lot easier. We use it to help new Sidereals, more than anything, but certainly it works just as well on other Exalts. The Great Contagion was a deadly plague that nearly killed everyone in Creation a couple of hundred years after the Usurp-after the Terrestrials took power."

"Sounds like a bioweapon," Fred opined. Biology wasn't her strong suit, but she knew that: "Illnesses have a strong tendency to adapt to their hosts and eventually burn out. It's no advantage to them to kill everyone."

"Good observation," Shaia said with a smile. "In fact few people realize that that's exactly what it was. A Deathlord unleashed it, and I doubt I can keep that from a mind like yours. I see how you look at this vessel."

"All of that's probably important," Xander said, "but Shaia, you do realize you've left our friends alone with a bunch of escaped slaves? The three of us-well, mostly Buffy-might have-"

Shaia strode forward and took him by the shoulders. She barely reached his chin, but he stumbled backwards all the same. "Do  _not_  discount yourself, or Fred, in that way. Yes, Buffy has the most experience of you three, but each of you has worldshaking power, which you desperately need to learn to use-and it sounds as if she also has much to unlearn."

"And our friends?" Xander recovered his balance and tried to push her away, without success.

"Will be all right. Your arrival disrupted the Tapestry; who knows if the Exaltations already attracted to your little band are the only ones? Perhaps your Anya will Exalt next. Or Wesley, or Tara. Several Exaltations that were meant to be embodied were kept from their hosts by the disturbance in fate; perhaps that means they are now meant for your friends, if they show their worth in time." Shaia pushed him down into a seat. "But they must have the opportunity. And you, Zenith, need training most of all. Too many Solars over the centuries have been petty warlords when they were meant to be god-kings."

" _God-kings_?" Xander's voice rose to a squeak, which Shaia ignored. Xander was undoubtedly a nice guy, but Fred couldn't think of him as god-king material.

Fred looked around at the hyper-advanced technology surrounding her, and chose a distraction. She sat down in her best guess for the captain's chair and started poking at controls. Shaia's eyes went wide in alarm.

Mission accomplished.

* * *

Another swig from the water bottle. Willow Rosenberg desperately hoped she wasn't drinking down hordes of unfamiliar bacteria and viruses. Hadn't Buffy said she came down with something awful enough that sorta-dying of radiation sickness seemed like the good alternative?

But the alternative to  _this_  was heatstroke, or at least heat exhaustion. This was the nicest, coolest part of the South? Admittedly it was afternoon but the sun beat down on her and just generally kept trying to broil her in her own juices or dehydrate her for jerky. "Somebody please tell the Sun I'm  _trafe_ ," she muttered. Maybe she was losing her wits. At least she'd decided a year and five months ago that conversing with other gods wasn't the same thing as praying to them, not when you knew for a fact they were listening and willing to respond. Much more comfortable after that.

She was probably the palest person here. She wasn't one of those poor Irishfolk who couldn't tan, luckily, given where she'd grown up, but it took careful control of her exposure and lots of sunscreen to not be burnt every summer. There were a mix of types, but this place seemed like the antithesis of white-bread Sunnydale (the result of various factors, most notably the white man's lack of good common sense, so Gunn assured her). Most common was a light brown, but she also saw people who looked south Asian or as if they were mixed eastern Native American. Yet no one here had ever seen India or Africa or even Kentucky. This world was as alien as if it were a Vulcan city she walked through now.

After hours of climbing through the tunnels (at least it seemed like hours) she'd emerged into a small town of a great city, a complicated puzzle of shops mixed with cozy little middle-class houses-middle class for here, of course, meaning that the best of them were little adobe blocks about the size of a doublewide. With no central air, no running water, no electricity-none of that stuff. They weren't deprived, she reminded herself. They were used to this place, and they had their own methods of beating heat and boredom. This was definitely  _not_  where Buffy had climbed the wall, but careful questioning had revealed that no inn worth a hoot could be found on either Eastleg or the Fold. With her power growth spurt, Buffy had surely found a decent inn.

At least there was nothing mazy about the city, which was carefully laid out in a modified grid. Here and there a recess between shops became a ramp, and the next street higher always ran atop the shops and houses of the one you were on. Good architectural decision; potentially awkward sleeping situation, depending on noise control.

"Willow!" She leapt at least half a meter in the air. The only person here who could possibly have known her was Buffy, unless one of the others had come after her into the city. But that deep masculine voice was definitely not her friend's. Had Buffy handed out their names and set people looking for them?

A short man with dark bronzy skin, straight jet-black hair, and folds in his deep brown eyes raced up and seized her around the waist, lifting her into the air and spinning her around before setting her down again. He was lucky he'd done that last bit; she was prepared to slam him backwards with her mind if she had to. Too bad her immediate response was "Eep!"

"I know this looks odd, but Willow, I swear it's me!"

Looks odd? It  _sounded_  odd, felt just as odd. Buffy was strong, but she didn't have those big knotted muscly arms. No mundane disguise could have done this to a slender California girl. "More magic powers, Buffy?" She said it under her breath, but the strange man flinched and shushed her.

"Follow me to the Monk's Gaze Inn, Will. I've got to get this thing off before I go stark raving bananas."

"I get the picture." Willow stifled a giggle, slipped her arm into Buffy's, and enjoyed the panicked look on her friend's borrowed face as they strolled away.

* * *

"I just figured you would know what it feels like, Angel."

Angel struggled to pick apart the motives of a teenage girl talking to him about what it was like to miss the person you love, to worry that you're never going to see him again. "Anya, I...I miss Buffy, but I've come to understand that we're not going to be together. It can't work between us."

"What?" Anya scowled at him. "This has nothing to do with Buffy, Angel. I know, I know, you never loved anyone before Buffy, we all buy that. I never loved anyone before Xander. Except Olaf, and let's just say that ended badly. But that didn't mean I never was in a relationship, same as you. That's what I was trying to say we had in common."

"Well, when you put it that way...I still don't get it."

"Angel! You know who I am! Put it together already. I was..." She lowered her voice to avoid being overheard by the refugees. "...a demon for a thousand years or so, but I didn't get any less horny. I met people. Men, mostly. That stuff about experimenting when you live long enough is more false than most people seem to realize. Sure, you try it a couple of times, just to see what you're missing, but usually what you're missing is a whole lot of nothing, Shakespearean pun acknowledged but not intended..."

Angel groaned.

"...I dated a vampire named Heinrich Nest once, think you knew him, but we were never in  _love_. His hair was atrocious, for one thing..."

_That_  made him choke, which he covered by coughing into the desert hare he was unpleasantly dining on. Heinrich Nest was better known as "the Master", Angel's own grandsire, and the idea of him dating Anya-or having hair-was impossible to imagine.

"What I'm saying is, I waited a long time to fall in love, Angel. I don't have that much more. I miss him, and I'm worried about him, and it doesn't even matter that he's got superpowers, he's still in a strange world and I just keep losing him, he just keeps running off!"

"I...okay, Anya. It's all right. I understand now." And he did, sort of. He'd given up his own humanity to ensure that Buffy survived; that had been what had taught him his lesson about her, in the end.

He put his arms out. He arranged them, so very awkwardly-couldn't have her thinking he was coming on to her, not now! And very, very gingerly, he gave the poor girl a hug.

* * *

They couldn't have been traveling for more than a few hours when Shaia signaled Fred to slow the courier to a stop.

Those first few minutes of panic when Fred suddenly took the controls had made Xander want to puke, but he'd recognized much faster than Shaia that Fred understood what she was doing. The main controls were surprisingly modern, and somewhere between her natural brains and her new powers Fred had intuited the rest. After he realized that she was just skimming along without a care, he'd sat back and watched the show as Shaia continued to shout warnings and directions for another two or three minutes, until finally she too seemed to realize they weren't in any immediate danger. Still, she'd been in a bad mood after she noticed him grinning.

"Fred, we're above Luthe. I'm going to signal Leviathan, and he's going to come for you. Or maybe send one of his understudies. I want you to be properly respectful, all right? He is one of the oldest Exalts still alive, and he is quite eccentric. He's also used to dealing with young Lunars with, ah...mental issues, so you needn't worry that you'll offend him  _accidentally_. Got that?"

Fred nodded, eyes wide, but Xander recognized at once that she was more excited than afraid. He thought he even understood why. She was about to get to try out her new powers in a much friendlier environment than the Lap had been. Even if Leviathan turned out not to like her very much, at least he didn't seem likely to kill her (though Xander worried he might be able to do that in an instant if he wanted). Shaia, oddly, didn't seem to realize that; she turned, in the expectation that Fred was cowed, and worked some controls.

The image of a great octopus appeared on a subsidiary screen, and Fred jumped up to go to it, but Shaia waved her back. "Just a moment. Sage of the Depths, I have a student for you. She needs the tattoos, I expect." Fred mouthed "tattoos", looking startled, and again Shaia waved her to silence. "I know you're pretty isolated out here, and I hate to violate that, but she seems ideal for the three of you." This time, Xander saw the octopus' coloration flicker wildly. "All right, I'll send her down. Fred, airlock one. No...scratch that, go to launch bay two, the empty one. Make us proud."

"Just like that?" Now that it came to it, Fred's eyes were wide with fear once again.

"I have faith in you, kid. You can do it. Just remember to go full squid as soon as you've got the water for it, and stay that way until you learn some more. You revert out there, you die, fast. You take on a form that can't breathe or take the pressure, you die, fast."

The fear in Fred's expression evaporated, replaced by disgust. "I'm not stupid." Then again, that might well have been Shaia's intention. "Just point the way, and you'll see." She turned and stalked out of the room.

"All right, as soon as she's out of the way, it's your turn." Shaia flicked the viewscreen over to an empty room. "Deactivating airlock safeties...go."

* * *

The Monk's Gaze Inn wasn't as high-class as Willow had hoped...or maybe she just wasn't used to pre-industrial housing yet. It was, however, noisy, which might have been the reason Buffy had chosen it. As long as they listened carefully they could converse without being overheard. Buffy really never had been stupid; she just had other things on her mind than school.

She did, however, look startled to see Tara walk in a moment after them. "I called her," Willow explained, tapping her forehead. Of course, they could have held the whole conversation this way, but Buffy had never seemed to enjoy that and she was already dealing with a lot.

"Buffy?" Tara said without a hint of real confusion. Naturally. She had recognized Faith in Buffy's body without ever actually meeting Buffy; of course she knew Buffy now.

"Let's go to my room," Buffy said. "I don't care what anyone thinks. I'm...I'm really tired, okay?"

Tara tilted her head for a moment, then nodded. "I understand. I expect it's exhausting."

Willow didn't even have time to take in the room before Buffy dropped the illusion. "Geez, I had to get out of that thing. I don't dare let it drop in public, but I've been out all day trying to find you guys or anyone who could get me back to my place. I guess I could have found a place to hide, but I was too stressed to think of it."

It wasn't a bad room; certainly the bed looked more comfy than anywhere Willow had slept recently. Willow tried not to hold a grudge and plopped herself down on it. Tara was saying, "When you're going to be in disguise like that in the long term, it's better to pick something that matches your self-image. Especially if it feels that real to you. Your aura...your energy...it feels like a real body, doesn't it?"

"In every way aside from being mine," Buffy agreed. "It was fun for a little while, but then...women watching me-no offense, you two, it's just different-people calling me 'sir' or 'mister'..."

Tara just shook her head ruefully. "You don't have to explain."

"I meant to talk downstairs, but then when I got here I just had to come up to the room and get the costume off."

Tara changed the subject. "You've been practicing. You make a mean glamour. I'm impressed, and I bet it won't be so bad if you stick closer to yourself. Have you learned anything else new?"

"I know how to get around the Lap. That's about the extent of it. Also that there's treasure up there in the head. Nobody knows what."

"There's definitely treasure," Tara agreed. "I don't think it's for any of us. Xander, maybe."

Buffy smiled. "It's good to know you're on my team. You know that, right?"

"I know. Buffy, the Scoobies are waiting for you outside the city with the refugees. We're all camped out in a cave, and it's safe but it's definitely not comfortable. We're also missing Xander and Fred; they got separated from us."

"They put out the fire." Buffy sighed a deep sigh. "All I did was run away from a fight."

"You kept them away from the rest of us, Buffy." This funk she was in worried Willow. "They're human. You can't be expected to kill them just to protect us."

"They're supposed to be heroes. This world is supposed to be full of heroes. How did it all go so wrong?" Buffy hung her head, shaking it back and forth. "I need to get out of here. I'm prophesied to make things worse. But they deserve to have someone fix it. What am I supposed to do? How do I leave them like this?"

Willow took one of her hands, and Tara held the other. "Do what you have to do," Willow said. "Whatever you decide that is."

* * *

The water pooled around her feet, and Fred did her best to breathe. She could do this. She could endure a collar around her neck. She could figure out how to break it so it stopped hurting her. She could hunt and gather in the wild. She could calm a feral vampire-monster. And she could dive to the bottom of the ocean.

Okay, those things didn't really go together. Except they did. She was a superhero now and that was her power: to survive. She was a survivor. A survivalist. No, that was something else. Little wavelets lapped around her knees.

Was she even going to be able to talk squid? Or octopus? It was a fallacy that those two were the same thing. Cold seawater soaked her pants up to the hips. But the Sage of the Depths wasn't just an octopus. He was like her, a Lunar Exalted. And he had been for hundreds of years. She didn't have to know how, not if he did.

It was time to get changed. The cold hardened her nipples. She didn't need those; she needed her gills. She needed gills. Her throat-

#####

Xander slapped his hands down on the chair arms and jumped up. "She's choking. She's not going to-"

"The water's not that deep yet."

"No, I mean she's  _choking_. She's not going to be able to change. She's-"

"Trust her, Xander. Wait for it."

#####

Her feet had left the floor. The water kept rising, but now it was taking her with it. Only, there was only so much room in the bay. She was treading water and her face was getting close to the ceiling.

Come on. She could do it. It was time, already. She could do it. Her cheek was pressed against the ceiling. Her lips were pressed closed. Water was seeping into her nostrils. Come on. One last breath. Too cold. Too liquid, too, too, too...

Too  _nothing_. Because she was, she was a  _fucking Lunar_.

Her arms stretched out, and her legs flexed, and her head swelled out into a fin-crested cone. The room was shrinking, and she was bigger, far, far bigger than she'd been when Buffy swung a fist at her. Bigger. Water sucked clean of oxygen sprayed from her siphon. Her mouth-her beak-clacked together, snapping. Her hands swelled, fingers vanishing, and what did that matter when she had suckers? (How had she missed those circles on her palms before?) Her eyes. She had eyes bigger than dinner plates. Her bones melted, her body imploded against her immense head, her arms were drawn up around her mouth. Bigger. Her tentacles curled around, still stretching, filling the bay.

The doors burst open, releasing her into her element. And still she grew. And though there was no need, no need at all, she released a trickle of energy. It flowed out of her, and she felt the disc on her forehead burst into life. Into light. A mile below the surface, the full moon shone, a moon the size of her father's truck tire on her massive forehead.

A ring of silver light the size of her grandfather's tractor tire answered. Faintly it illuminated a being like her, not like her. Larger even than she had swelled, its head-body drifted free of internal support, a great bulbous mass, and it had no padded tentacles, but its arms could have wrapped around  _Water Lily's Unseen Root_  three times over. If it chose, it could crush her.

Colors and patterns rippled along its body. "Unblooded," it said. "Swim with me."

"Yes," she answered. "Yes, that will be very nice." Which was to say, her own body rippled with patterns of shadow.

"Hunt with me." She understood. And answered.

"Yes. Yes I will." Texas was an unimaginable distance away. Beyond space, even beyond time. And yet, and yet she was...

...home.

* * *

"Well, that's that." Shaia turned from the console, and Xander could only watch as the Sage of the Depths swam off-screen, followed a moment later by Winifred Burkle. "I'm glad that went well. My contact with the Lunars is, shall we say, tenuous, especially where those three are concerned. Gold Faction delivers the occasional newbie, and they don't attack us when we do. It's not even a formal agreement, just an arrangement of convenience, and a very recent one at that. You're another matter."

"I'm going to the island." He had to hope the other new Solars were easier to get along with than Leviathan sounded.

"Yes, yes, the island." Shaia bent over the controls, and  _Water Lily's Unseen Root_  sped away, toward the surface.

Xander wasn't even really sure he was facing forward. He looked over his shoulder anyway, and wished Fred luck.

* * *

"Dear Lord. How did you ever get here? Were you drawn by Buffy's departure? Were you-?"

"Calm down, Giles," said Faith. "You really need to learn the score on this one. When you see Faith, and there's no reason for you to be seeing Faith, it isn't Faith. Which means that...it...is...in...fact..."

"Buffy." Rupert Giles stopped sweating. Or at least, stopped sweating nervously. "Of course I should have realized. Although you have raised a whole host of questions that I had not thought to consider about the source of Faith's powers."

"Come on out, girls. I've had my fun." Willow and Tara appeared in the cave mouth. "Okay, Giles. I hate to lose Xander and Fred, but I'm going to have to trust that they can take care of themselves here. You, on the other hand, are saddled with a large group of people who probably can't, and who in turn are going to make it hard on you to take care of yourselves. I've heard rumors about a big scary bull-monster Anathema who frees slaves and kills slavers. We're going to look for him, and he's a long way east in a town called Chair-squirrel."

"Chiaroscuro," Willow corrected.

"After we drop off our load of free men and women with this 'Strength-of-Many', as the stories call him, we can try to find Fred and Xander. I'm sure they'll be making waves. It's in our nature."

"The Slayer," Giles began.

"Terrorized the demon world for ten thousand years or more. Yeah, we kept a low profile, but we also made modern Earth possible." Buffy turned to look east. "Xander and Fred are nice modern people in this world of medieval screwheads. They'll rock the boat, and we'll follow the waves. But in the meanwhile, we have to get moving. It's a long way where we're going, and we're going to have to pass through a creepy 1984ish place called Paragon, or take the scenic route through the desert."

"Keeping these people safe isn't going to be easy, Buffy."

She only shook her head. "No, it's not. But the merely difficult we do right away, and the impossible we finish by next Thursday at lunch."

* * *

"All right, Xander. This is it. Take this luggage up the track there, and my other couple of students will meet you over the hill. I'm going to get a few more things from the ship, and I'll join you in a few minutes."

He pulled the strap over his shoulder. It was time to find out just what he could do.

The island didn't look like much. A couple of scrubby palm trees stood on either side of the dirt path, bearing the stereotypical coconuts. Well, Shaia said the Gold Faction had been a minority for about a thousand years. That was how it went.

Over the hill there was a little village of wood huts, Shaia had said. So she had said. All Xander saw was more palm trees, a little cluster of them that almost obscured the beach beyond. Maybe it was magically hidden somehow. He turned to look back and saw the  _Water Lily's Unseen Root_  sinking rapidly into the ocean.

"Hey!" He started to charge down the hill, then realized that if the vessel could dive a mile deep to meet Leviathan's lieutenants, he wasn't likely to survive clinging to the hull. True, he could try it, and maybe he'd even make it inside before drowning, but if Shaia wanted him dead, she had a few centuries of experience on him. His better choice was the equally unlikely task of finding his own way off the island.

First things first: why had she given him the satchel? Was it a bomb? On top of the load was a small cubical box with an obvious clasp. He opened it, and her smiling face appeared above a little projector.

"I'm afraid I have to leave you here, Xander. I can't let you interfere with my plans. Fred will stay out of the way down below, or Leviathan will kill her, just like I warned. And you...well, I've left you enough food to last a week or so. If you can't get off the island in that time or last longer on your own, you're not the Solar I thought you were. When we meet again-and we will meet again-I'll fast-talk you right back to the island. I mean, I could just kill you, but then there'd just be another couple of loose Exaltations running around and who knows where they'd show up next." The image winked. "Think I can't now that you know me? Think again. Long before you get powerful enough to interfere with my business, I'll have completed my task in this identity. Best of luck finding me on any terms but my own."

Well. Damn it.

He was going to have to get creative.

* * *

Shaia went back to studying the arcane patterns of the locking mechanism. Surely nothing could hold a Chosen of the Maidens forever. She was having trouble remembering how long she'd been here in this basement, not to mention she'd begun to wonder if her arcane fate had made her very existence slip from the mind of her captor. She did know one thing: she had to get out of Malfeas before he figured out how to achieve what he sought. That would be true disaster. Shaia was certain from what he'd said that he served She Who Lives in Her Name, and (possibly barring a Neverborn) there were no worse hands in which the Blossom of the Perfected Lotus could rest.


	5. Perhaps No Worse A World Than Yours

"So what's on the menu?"  
Sage of the Depths rippled with shadows and color. Laughter. "You may eat what you like. Trust your instincts. We hunt not for meat, though, but for Heart's Blood. We will obtain you a smaller form, that you may more easily go in and out of the habitats of men. Ask what you will."  
"Um, well, any advice on what to pick up?"  
"Small things are mostly good for infiltration, and you will do little of that underwater. There will be times, but save for later. Undersea, swimming predators are best. Sharks, great whales, and us, of course. But you may also want a selection of smaller, harder-to-spot carnivores."  
"Sea snake?"  
"A clever choice, Unblooded. Dangerous, yet able to fit into small places. And if you find the right one you can even go on land, a bit. I suppose you will likely wish to return there at some point. Later, you will want to choose some transitional forms. Turtles. Flying fish. So that you can travel where you like. But that is for the future."  
And not a word of this was, well...words. Their bodies shimmered through colors and shades and patterns as fast as thought.  
"Once you have a new shape, I will take you to the city-shoal below and we will see to your tattoos."  
A blank whiteness. "What tattoos?"  
Silver patterns flickered into life across the Sage's body and vanished again. "I keep them hidden as they interfere with talk. Over the long years after the Usurpation, when we fled into chaos, our Exaltations broke. Our castes no longer hold steady across the course of the month unless fixed with moonsilver, and we risk becoming monsters of mutable form. It is your choice to refuse the tattooing if you wish, but I will not hide my displeasure, or teach you further. You will have to find another."  
"I always wanted to get some sweet tattoos. Never got the chance. I guess this is it." It sounded like sense to her, but that probably meant he wasn't telling her something or nobody would refuse.  
"Then let us find a sea snake. I will show how you must stalk it, and when you have consumed its Heart's Blood I will find you again. Never fear; I can feel you from fathoms away."  
"Let's get going." What was this 'city-shoal below'? She couldn't ask names. It would just have to wait its turn.  
*****  
"Trekking across the desert again. Oh joy." The grain fields had slowly given way to patches of smaller crops. Only tomatoes remained now, and those were growing more and more scattered.  
"Are we having fun yet, Spike?" Buffy just shook her head at him. "This is why you shouldn't have come after me. At least I understand why the others did. You, not so much."  
"What, an' stay with Harmony? Yeah, luv, that was definitely my first choice on how to spend my time after you vanished." He kept scratching under his face wraps; she supposed they were itchy.  
"I'll have to find you guys veils or something. Honestly, I'm a little surprised Harmony didn't join in, the size of the group you sent after me."  
"You sound like you don't appreciate us coming to rescue you, luv."  
"I'm glad you cared enough to come. I'm worried that I'm going to end up taking care of all of you instead of the other way round. This place is dangerous enough that I barely survived my first week."  
"Well, excuse me for not having the thing that there are only seven hundred of in the universe or the thing you have to inherit from parents who don't live in our world! All I get to be is a bloody vampire!" Spike stalked away, swearing under his breath.  
She kept walking. What else was there to do?  
*****  
The first thing he needed was a blade, and something bigger than the pocketknife he'd carried with him from Sunnydale. Xander carefully pried tiny screws out of the recording device. The electronics--if that's what they were--were a useless mass, but they weren't what interested him. The panel didn't want to come off, and that was okay; he bent it until it broke, leaving a sharp, ragged edge.  
Next step: cut down the palm trees. With a herring. Okay, with a makeshift saw. It could definitely have been worse. His hands should have been torn and bleeding by this point, but with a cautious grip he managed to take down the trees one by one in a matter of hours.  
Lunch break. Hack open the coconuts. By this time he had gone through a couple more saw blades, but there were more available and the work was nearing completion. Coconut milk. Coconut meat. Tasty at first, leaning toward sickly sweet by the time he finished eating. And then he began to saw away at the fronds.  
Not the ideal cords for binding logs together. Nor were the logs ideal raft material, but at least he didn't have to use corpses as flotation devices like in _Watchmen_. Good thing, too, since he didn't have any. He also didn't have a sail, or anything small enough to use as an effective paddle. By the time he shoved himself away from the island, kicking with his feet, he knew that his odds of surviving this ordeal should have dropped to roughly zero. But then, he should never have succeeded in making the raft in the first place. "Don't tell me the odds," he muttered under his breath, and kept paddling.  
Xander knew--what California kid didn't?--that you didn't drink seawater; that way lay dehydration and a quick death. By the end of the day, though, when he'd tired of kicking the raft forward and had curled up atop it, he'd been out in the blazing sun for hours on end, hours without rest, and quick death was starting to look pretty good. He cupped his hand over the side and took a sip.  
It was no Mountain Dew, that was for sure. Soon, he knew, the thirst would return with a vengeance as the salt drove water out of his body. Soon. After, you know, an hour. Or two. Or five. Or eight.  
The sun was rising over the waves, and he was awake, not dead of thirst. His stomach growled. His skin was taking on a nice bronzy hue, which he was starting to realize was probably not going to turn into skin cancer in a few years, nor was he getting burned. He peeled off his shirt, tied the sleeves and neck into knots, and dipped it into the water like a net. The fish who swam into it must have been terribly confused, to cram themselves into such a tiny space that way.  
There was nothing to start a fire with but the raft. He held the projector lens from Shaia's message device in the air and focused sunlight onto the first fish to stop flopping. It was a good lens. The fish seared slowly under the beam of light it made. By noon he was messily eating roast fish and tossing the entrails overboard.  
None of this seemed particularly plausible. GIven that it was happening, though, Xander began to think he might actually make it to land alive.  
Perhaps an hour later, fins rose out of the water and began to circle.  
*****  
Finally the sun set, and Angel peeled the sand-crusted cloth from his face. They were miles away from nowhere, but they had a clear road to follow, so there was some hope that they would reach Paragon in one piece.  
"Feeling better?" Cordy asked him as they made their way off the side of the road. There was nowhere to camp here but in the dunes. No one had signaled any alarms going off, though--no mystical intuitions from Willow, no visions for Cordy, nothing new from Buffy. That left making the best of a rough night.  
"It's good to be out of the sun," Angel told her. Too few people seemed to realize that being out in the sun, even protected, was a good way to make a vampire sick and weak. He was becoming used to it, as much as possible, and Spike had apparently been determined to run around Sunnydale in increasingly scant protection, so there was that.  
"You don' t think we're on a wild goose chase, do you?" Cordelia waved her hands out over the dunes. "I mean, sure, this is a road and it goes somewhere, but Buffy seems to be flying by the seat of her pants."  
"Can any of us do better? She's at least had a little time to sit down and study this place." Cordy's eyebrows rose into her hairline at the word "study" applied to Buffy. "I wouldn't discount her Slayer powers, either." Angel had always seen that Buffy had a superb tactical mind and intuition, qualities that Giles had seemed determined to overlook as part of the Slayer package. He'd presumed that had to do with the conceit that the Watchers got to give orders to their charges.  
"Probably not," Cordy acknowledged. "I just wish the Powers would send me a vision of what to do, though. How are we ever going to get out of this place?"  
"The same way we got home from Pylea. We keep looking until we find the information we need. Maybe it'll be in a book, or maybe we'll have to be scientists and study the world, but if we can get here, surely we can leave."  
Cordelia started to sigh, but turned it into nervous laughter. "I'm just tired of camping out with no camping equipment, you know? We're going to wake up with sand all in our clothes and hair and everything. We might as well just bury ourselves in--"  
Sand fountained everywhere as pale figures burst from the dunes. Looked as if someone had already taken Cordelia's idea and run with it. Most of them wore loincloths, if that much, and carried only bone daggers. To him, at least, they were no threat.  
"What the hell," Cordelia wailed. "Why didn't I see this coming?"  
Buffy pulled out a dagger of her own, one she must have acquired in town. It was little more than a belt knife with a poorly sharpened blade, though Buffy held it with a quiet menace that might have matched a scythe.  
"There will be no fighting tonight," intoned a woman's voice. The last of the folk to emerge from the sand, though as pale as the rest, wore red clothing that resembled a stripper's parody of a nun's habit. (In truth, though, Angel was not so sure it wasn't legitimate religious garb here.) "Stand down, my people."  
"But--!" one of the men protested. Like the rest, his skin was as pallid as moonlight.  
The priestess, or whatever she was, sidled her way over to that one. "By the decree of Cecelyne, we are here to give escort." She dug her nails into the man's shoulder. "Whoso disobeys, I will not lay a finger on, for it is not my place. Rather, they shall be turned over to she who is currently the apple of Malfeas' eye. Dread Sacheverell spoke of her, and now she has disrupted the Lap more than any servant of the Yozis in living memory. She is the Slayer of all those who hide from sunlight, and it is she who shall punish anyone who harms a hair on the head of the least slave." She turned a genuinely pleasant smile on Buffy, though Angel thought it might have hidden a touch of jealousy. "We are here because _you_ , Slayer, are summoned to Malfeas this night. We will ensure the safety of your companions, as is demanded of me. You may know me as Sulumor."  
Buffy gave her a wry grin. "Buffy Summers. Nice to meet ya. Interesting company you keep. How do I get to Malfeas?"  
Sulumor shook her head ruefully. "Strange, the gaps Cyan left in your education. A single mote of Essence would illuminate the nearest path. This time, I will take you there."  
Dawn, Giles, and Spike all spoke Buffy's name at once, each with an obvious objection. Angel thought to do the same, then halted at Buffy's frown. "Look, guys, I hate to leave you here, but this is something I can't put off. And Malfeas is a lot less safe than here."  
"Can we trust these...people?" Gunn asked. "Or are they gonna turn on us the moment you're gone?"  
"If she can order them in the name of the Yozis to obey, I'm inclined to think they'll do what she says. But they're ordinary people with a skin condition. If they do turn on you, you can take them." Buffy hugged Dawn. "You be careful. I really wish you hadn't come, Dawn, but there's nothing to be done now. Listen to Giles."  
"You really don't have to do this." At the last moment Angel decided to argue the point, but Buffy shushed him.  
"Depends on what you mean by 'have to'," she said. "I could stay, but it's the worst of multiple bad plans. I may as well find out what they want with me, especially if word on the street is that I'm causing trouble. Sulumor, you're up."  
The priestess raised an eyebrow. "This is called Hell-Walker Technique, Buffy. It's simplest if I come with you." She set off toward the south, and Buffy followed. Angel scanned the Scoobies' faces; all of them still wanted to call her back.  
Yet all were silent.  
*****   
"So where's the gateway?" Buffy stared back at her friends as they watched her walk away. Dawn looked forlorn. Willow gave a wave, her face fixed in a false smile. Tara just furrowed her brow.  
Angel couldn't look at her at all.  
"There is no gateway. We walk into the desert. In five days, we encounter the walls of the Demon City. You truly know none of this?" Sulumor peered at her. "They say you are as unlike us as you are like, and as yet the Yozis have given you no introduction."  
"I heard it. It's just hard to imagine. I guess it's no stranger than not being able to travel faster than light." She was leaving them behind and walking into hell.  
"Why couldn't you travel faster than light? How odd." For all that Sulumor kept her nose in the air, her eyes kept studying Buffy's face, her responses. "You can trust them, you know. They worship me."  
"Not the Yozis?" That seemed odd.  
"As well as the Yozis. As an avatar of the Yozis. Or Cecelyne, at least. Have you gathered no worshippers?" From the sound of it, that was nearly as strange as not being able to outrace light.  
"The Slayer--the only one, where I come from--is supposed to operate in secret. And to kill demons, not serve them. My Watcher always told me about how the Slayer--only one--killed off the Old Ones, the Primordials I guess, and freed humanity from them. But the modern world has forgotten about demons, and I'd be...a crazy girl, or even a murderer, if I worked in public."  
"You have worshippers here. Have you noticed? You are an avatar of Malfeas, yourself." For all Sulumor's pride, it almost sounded as if she were trying to earn Buffy's approval with information! "How do you feel when you wake in the morning?"  
Buffy jolted to a halt and stared. "Stronger, actually. More refreshed than I've been in years." That was from _worship_?  
"You feel their prayers. They refresh your will. With more worshippers, with stronger faith, you would draw Essence from them as well. You poor child. How did you survive? Let me help you. I can spread word of you."  
Buffy tried not to recoil and failed. "I just...made it one day at a time, I guess. I don't understand why you care so much."  
"Because the Yozis favor you. If I aid you, I serve them all the better. Why else?"  
Buffy gazed off into the distance, wondering if she could see the walls of Malfeas out there somewhere. "Were you raised to serve them?"  
Sulumor shook her head. "My people are cursed by the Unconquered Sun. He hates us, we know not why. But we served Luna faithfully, and the wind spirits, and the Maidens, for all that they ever did to help us. Cecelyne promised to protect my people from the Sun's wrath. What can I do but trust her?"  
"I'm...I'm sorry it's like that for you." What kind of lives had these people had to live? It sounded like being a vampire, only without the perks like the lack of conscience and the super-strength.  
"I am Cecelyne's chosen, to rule the South in her name. So long as I work toward that end, she cares for me, and I use that to care for my people whether she does or not. What task have the Yozis--the Old Ones, if you prefer--set you?"  
That left Buffy baffled. "Supposedly Sacheverell saw that I would free the Yozis. That's all I know."  
Sulumor scowled. "Yes. But how? Do you build weapons? Lead armies? Fight with your own strengths? What goal? Do their Urges not drive you?"  
"I..." Buffy shook her head. "The only task I was ever set was the one Slayers have been fulfilling for millennia in my world." Sulumor just waited expectantly, as if sure that must be it. "Each of us was the one girl in the world," Buffy quoted, "with the power to stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness. But why would any demon, even a Yozi, set us up to do that? It makes no sense."  
Sulumor thought on that for a while, muttering to herself. "Cecelyne might. That is, not for the sake of fighting and killing them, but to regulate. To lay down a law. Over so many thousands of years, the mission might have been corrupted. Perhaps other commands, from other Yozis, might produce the same problem, in time."  
Buffy almost said something about Telephone, but that would mean nothing to Sulumor. "You think I was meant to...to _police_ demons. To regulate what they do in the world."  
"Does that not sound plausible to you? And then somehow, you fell into the hands of men who misled you about your purpose. You never violated it...only perverted the outcome."  
Buffy kept her eyes on the ground. "I...I guess I don't know."  
*****  
"I am pleased with you, Unblooded."  
"Thanks." Fred hadn't been worried about anything but her ability to actually catch the prey. Everyone in her family hunted, and she'd learned to set an effective snare in Pylea. But sea snake venom was truly nasty, and she'd had to dance her tentacles about to avoid being bitten. Avoid it she had, though, and her beak had snipped out the snake's heart without a hitch.  
"We go now to the city-shoal. Down. Very far down. There I will give you your tattoos. Then you will undergo your trials to determine what caste they will fix you into. I am a No Moon, and I would not be surprised if you will be as well, but that has yet to be seen."  
Whatever this city-shoal was, it seemed to have settled into a deep-sea trench. Fred kept a sharp lookout for volcanic vents, and was rewarded with a good view of some tube worms and associated crabs. They didn't seem like ideal targets for hunting, though. No mobility to speak of for the worms, of course, and the rest were small but conspicuous.  
At last it came into view, a massive squared-off thing like an aircraft carrier doubled in width, then multiplied over and over in size. Many graceful bubble-domes rose above the "flight deck", if that was what it had been, and at the center a great tower of such domes that might have been a command center, once.  
She still didn't know this place's name. It must have had one, once; it was evident from the specifics of its shape--the wide deck, the narrow, half-hidden keel--that the city was meant to float on the ocean's surface. Whether it could ever be gotten there again was open to some question, of course, but from this altitude there was no way to see the damage.  
For all that the city looked as if it had once been luxurious, as they sank past the central tower, Fred could see only dirty, miserable faces pressing against tiny portholes. "Is that--? Are they--?"  
"Pay the Traitorspawn no mind. You have no doubt met their like on the surface. The Dragon-Blooded rose up and betrayed our kind, and for that they must suffer."  
Fred hoped Sage of the Depths didn't notice when she slapped a tentacle pad to her face. Damn it! What was wrong with this world?  
*****  
Xander had gone through the bag of provisions, but this seemed like a better choice. He gutted the last fish and added the entrails to the pile. Then he removed his pants and sliced as clean a pair of holes as he could at the end of the leg, down to the seam. He tied the other end of the pants around the log just behind the makeshift frond ropes and tossed a handful of fish guts ahead of the raft.  
Instantly a shark lunged for the free food, and Xander tossed that leg of his pants at its fin. By this point he was barely even surprised when he caught it in one throw. The hole caught itself around the fin as the shark darted forward, dragging the raft with it. "Good girl," Xander called, feeling foolish, and tossed another glob of entrails ahead of the shark. "Keep going! Good, good!"  
In a matter of minutes he was splashing his way forward, hurtling across the wavecaps. He still wasn't sure where he was going, but he was getting there a lot faster. Birds swooped down to investigate the fish guts, and he clubbed them with a block of circuitry and added them to the bait pile. Every so often he tossed the shark something and called out encouragement. A little voice in his head that generally represented the voice of reason had begun laughing at him. "Yeah, yeah, I know. You can't train a shark. I'm lying back there on the island hallucinating from thirst. Well, guess what?" He glanced back at the trail of foam he was leaving. "It's a cool hallucination, and I'm going to enjoy it while I can. So there."  
******  
"Do you have any interest in learning sorcery?" Sulumor persisted in trying to engage Buffy in conversation, perhaps just to pass the time. She insisted that no matter how fast or slow they walked, the trip to Malfeas would take exactly five days.  
"I don't know that I've ever been any good at it," Buffy said ruefully. "I've cast a spell here and there, but mostly I've always left that sort of thing up to Willow. I can't seem to grasp the underlying principles of it." The only time she ever remembered really understanding what she was doing, she'd been mentally fused with Giles and Willow. And Xander, though that probably didn't have anything to do with it.  
"Hmm." Sulumor tapped at her lips. "You must have been initiated, in some fashion or other. Still, I know of certain teachers who are employed to go through the barest rudiments of the five stations, so that someone who merely wants to cast a single spell can do so without excessive effort. Or perhaps the nature of initiation has changed in your world and time. We can always start over, if you like. Most of us eventually learn at least a little sorcery; it comes fairly easy to us, and only we and the Solars can learn its highest expression."  
Buffy fell silent. She wasn't especially interested in learning Infernal magics, though the idea that she'd somehow been initiated without knowing made her curious how that worked. Cyan's friendliness clearly covered up ulterior motives; Buffy could sense the deceit in her, though she wouldn't go so far as to say the woman was malicious toward her. Sulumor, by contrast, seemed relatively genuine--yet somehow expected Buffy to overlook her demon-worship and ambitions of conquest. Perhaps she just thought Buffy shared those things with her.  
She was persistent, Buffy had to give her that. Presently she tried another approach. "I had a thought on your Exaltations. Perhaps they were deliberately engineered by this 'Watchers' Council'. That could be the reason for the odd properties of your line of Slayers."  
"Um...go on? I'm not sure I see what you're getting at."  
"Some of you are raised by this Council, and others approached later in life, but they offer you a choice in either case. A choice between two great moral failings: dereliction of duty leading to the end of the world...or participation in an ongoing act of genocide." Sulumor raised her eyebrows. "Could it be they've simply devised a reliable method of attracting an Infernal Exaltation? Such a thing would be astonishing--even in the First Age, the Solars struggled to learn anything about how Exaltations functioned--but not impossible in principle."  
Buffy eyed Sulumor askance and retreated still further into herself. She couldn't make herself see her activities as genocidal, but from an outsider's perspective, maybe it looked that way. Certainly she'd signed on briefly with the Initiative, with its demon prison camp, but the organization hadn't exactly welcomed her with open arms either.  
Still, she considered what her immediate successors had been like: Kendra, simultaneously eager and coldly calculating, and then Faith, with her violent absence of morals. Was it possible that Sulumor was onto something? It couldn't be the whole story, she finally concluded; there was a gaping hole in the theory. There would have to have been times when the Council couldn't recruit a new Slayer, because the Exaltation would have gone to someone out of their scope entirely. No silver sands or crystal spheres had sparkled over the Soviet gulags, and Hitler had never glowed green during his speeches. There were too many human figures of horrific evil who surely should have gotten the lone Exaltation before any candidate the Watchers could field.  
But did that mean the whole theory was bunk? Or just that there was some other controlling factor neither she nor Sulumor had any way of knowing about?  
*****  
"Do you sense it yet, Dru?" Darla stood over the Seal of Danzalthar and began to drizzle blood onto it. She'd never seen the Seal when the Master had been imprisoned in this place, but he himself had claimed that the Hellmouth opened on many different realms of existence, changing over the years when no one occupied it.  
Drusilla hugged herself tightly, but that meant little. The Seal itself was affecting her, for one thing, and then Dru's mannerisms were unpredictable under the best of circumstances. "They sing to me," though, was a better indicator. "They sing, but they can't dance. They're not allowed out to play anymore."  
Finally the Seal decided it'd absorbed enough blood and folded itself open. Darla swung herself down into the pit below, expecting a vast cavern filled with fire or demons or both. All she found was a narrow shaft like a well. And at the bottom was...  
A box. Though there was no sign of a lid. The little cube's outermost layer was solid as a diamond and might once have been as clear, but now it was crazed with tiny lines, like a neglected plastic window. Beneath that, a smaller black cube seemed to eat light, though it was coated with a filigree of metal that was somehow at once dull and sparkling.  
"Fits the description they gave us," Darla said. "Though they made it sound like it's got three more layers in there. Guess they're under the jet black part."  
"Three sixes," Drusilla crooned. "Three and six, they make nine, nine hundreds of them all cooped up inside. Except a few have flown the coop, the naughty things."  
Darla lifted it easily. She felt nothing from it, herself. But it matched exactly with what the woman from Wolfram and Hart had described, and called by the odd name of "the Six-Metal Prison". "Next step, merry old England, where we make the Watchers' Council an offer it can't refuse."


	6. The Superman Exists and She's American

Generally speaking, Darla was amused when people pointed guns at her. Sure, it hurt if they shot her, but not many humans were accurate enough to hit her, and it was impossible for them to kill her. Generally. There was, however, the unfortunate exception that a shotgun pointed at her head might very well decapitate her, and at the moment she and Drusilla each had about six chances of decapitation each.  
She was facing a viewscreen that portrayed the aging visage of Quentin Travers, and from the rigid nature of the smile on his face, he was not truly amused. "Why do Wolfram and Hart bother to insult this august body by sending a pair of vampires to represent them? Half the Scourge of Europe, no less?"  
"I'm certain I couldn't say," Darla said dryly. "All I know is, they expected you to talk long enough to learn what we're offering. And after you heard that, they were confident you wouldn't turn me down."  
"We might still destroy you, then send word to Wolfram and Hart via contacts of our own." My, he was touchy today.  
Darla smirked and tossed her hair. "What if I said the deal would be off, then? It seems the company has some further use for me."  
Travers leaned casually forward into the camera. "Tell me what this wonderful offer is so that I can turn it down and blow the two of you to hell."  
"All right, if that's how you want it." She made her face as smooth as she could. "What about an army of Slayers? Hundreds of them. It seems there was always intended to be more than one girl."  
Travers reached over to flip a switch, and Darla sighed. "Dru, show him the box."  
Drusilla held up the box. "So many Slayers. May I eat them, Grandmum?"  
"It doesn't look as if you may, dear. Quentin doesn't want them released, and you can't very well eat them straight out of the box." She gave Travers a wink and started to turn away. Drusilla pouted prettily.  
"Damn you! Tell me what it is you want from us." Travers was beginning to break a sweat. She had him now.  
"Just two things. First, we need any information you have on the origin of the Slayer."  
Travers snorted. "You want a mass of useless legends? Done. What's your other condition?"  
"We want to skim a few off the top. A pittance, really. One hundred forty-nine of them." She gave him her most winning smile. He was going to reject the offer, of course. She decided she might as well drop the other shoe. "Going to ask why such a specific number?"  
"You don't want to round it off?"  
"Wolfram and Hart wants a specific one hundred fifty of them. The ones that are already corrupt. Think that through." She winked at Dru, who blushed and twisted her skirts coquettishly.  
Quentin's face went livid for a moment. Then he sagged, and suddenly the Head of the Council looked very, very old. "I should have known. How did we miss this? How...I should have known. The rebellion, the need for the retrieval teams...." He hid his face behind his hands for a moment. "Very well. Give us the unaltered ones, and take the rest. The ones who'll serve the cause loyally are ours, and for the rest, you're welcome to them. May they give you as many headaches in a year as the one has in ten thousand."  
"It's a deal, then?"  
Quentin thrust himself at the camera. "Go! Get out of here, you unholy--! Go tell your masters they have what they wanted, and we'll be ready to choke them on it!"  
Darla winked at him, turned, and sidled away.  
*****  
"So this is it." Lilah Morgan turned the box over in her hands. "The Six-Metal Prison. Where did we even hear about this?"  
Holland Manners smiled. "A new intern with undeniable initiative. I like him. Fellow named Knox. Has some unusual religious beliefs, but far be it from me to discriminate."  
"Hadn't met him yet." She tried to keep track of the interns, though in truth probably only the telepaths ever managed to know everyone.  
"He's with a subsidiary. Applied Sciences and Occult division."  
Lilah tilted her head, lifted one eyebrow. "Didn't know we even had that."  
"If we didn't, we would now. He's absolutely brilliant. Anyway, he dug up some obscure text that suggested the Slayer was originally one of a great many living weapons, and that they were imprisoned in this...device."  
It seemed so...small. She suspected it would be better to hold it still, but she couldn't resist the urge to keep rolling it over and over. "Maybe you should take it. Something about it...."  
Holland shrugged. "They feel a need to be free. Don't we all?"  
"If it is a prison, how do we open the door?"  
"In fact that would seem to be easier than we expected. There are two methods, and which is easier depends on the resources at hand. First, it has a flaw, though perhaps a deliberate one. There is a miniscule crack in the corner. Knox found it almost at once. Just enough space for a single weapon to almost escape, though a tiny thread passing through the crack tethers it to the prison. He believes a vitriol-pumped laser would bore through it at that point and free them into the world. Unfortunately, we're not certain we can control their release."  
"Definitely not a desirable thing."  
"No. The alternative, however, is likely easier said than done. When Buffy Summers was clinically dead four years ago, the weapon attempted to pass to another, but she was revived too quickly and it was drawn fully into her, allowing a second essence to escape. It bonded to one Kendra Young, and at Kendra's death passed to Faith Lehane, whom I believe you know."  
"So we kill Faith." That shouldn't be too difficult. The girl was in prison. "We can do that. Riots happen."  
"Uh-uh-uh, Lilah. We do have to kill her, yes, but then she must be revived. Otherwise the next Slayer to be called will simply retain the same essence. Therefore we have to use some caution. It wouldn't do to have her beheaded, for instance." Holland rubbed his hands together. "We have our resources, but I'm trusting you to use some finesse."  
"Won't we have to kill and revive each person who gets the next one? I'd hate to have a murder spree of young girls on the news." Probably it would never be connected to Wolfram and Hart, but why take chances?  
"We'll be looking into our options, Lilah, but I'd rather see you succeed. I'm sure you'd rather succeed as well. Wouldn't you?"  
A faint shiver ran through her. "Of course I would. One more question, sir."  
Holland smiled. "Feel free, Lilah. You're a valued member of the team, and we want you fully on board with this."  
"Are we really going to give the 'uncorrupted' essences back to the Watcher's Council?" While they didn't tangle with the Slayer on a regular basis, one girl in all the world was surely enough to cause some hassle. Hundreds would be worse, much worse.  
Holland held out his hands. "Toss it here." With a shrug, she did so. "Why not? You just gave them to me. Utterly useless like this, of course, but here they are. The price for releasing them, by contrast, is certainly much higher than the Council could pay. Wouldn't you agree?"  
Lilah released a disbelieving chuckle. "You utter ass."  
Holland shook his head and laughed along with her. "Nonsense. I'm a perfectly reasonable man."  
*****  
Faith's eyes were closed. The sun shone down on her. It was nice out here. It was warm. Too bad she didn't get to come out here more often, but at least the other inmates had learned to leave her alone. Alone in general, alone especially when she was relaxing. For that matter, the guards mostly left her alone too, even at times when they felt the need to make a show of force. If you had to be in jail, sunny southern California was the place to be there.  
She felt the blow ages before it landed and caught it one-handed. All right, not everyone had learned her place in the pecking order yet. A second fist, which she caught in her other hand.  
The third slammed into her abs. The owner of that fist regretted her action at once. Slayer strength didn't _depend_ on muscles, but Faith kept hers rock hard. It was a matter of pride. Also of looking dangerous, which up till now had kept even the new blood off of her.  
Only then did Faith bother to open her eyes. Good for her. The next comer wasn't depending on fisticuffs; she had a shiv. With a sigh, Faith disabused her by knocking the blade across the yard. "Anyone else want a piece of this?" The prisoners drew back, shaking their heads.  
Which revealed the corrections officer holding a gun on Faith. "You causing trouble, Lehane?" Faith put up her hands, shaking her head.  
"No ma'am. No trouble here."  
The officer gave her a wry, skeptical grin and squared her stance. "I think you are, Lehane. I think you're instigating a riot. Stand down."  
"I'm not even standing _up_." Buffy had been a bad influence. Any moment now and she'd be punning.  
The officer--Faith realized she didn't recognize "Worrell" (according to her badge) as anyone she'd ever seen before--sneered. "Hands up and weapons down, Lehane. Oh, right...you can't do both. Looks like I might just have to fire on you."  
"Ma'am, I swear, all you have to do is cuff me if you think I'm a threat." She held up her hands, running through possibilities in her head. Maybe some actual rogue element of the police had it in for her; she was a murderer after all. Possibly Wolfram and Hart were after her for not killing Angel for them. Most likely, however, she was up against the ever-so-righteous Watchers' Council of Great Bloody Britain. They'd tried to kill her twice already, though once they'd taken Buffy by extremely understandable mistake, since they'd been body-swapped right then. Or it could just be somebody in the pay of some demons. Slayers always had a fan club there.  
"No, no...wait, did I hear the word 'threat'? Are you threatening me, Lehane? Is that right?" None of this chatter was necessary. This woman, at least, was just a cop, a dirty cop but one who still had to talk herself up to killing a prisoner in cold blood.  
"I swear to you, ma'am, whoever put you up to this I can deal with--"  
Worrell opened fire. The first shot went wild. She really didn't want to do this. But by the second shot she'd worked herself up to continue, and it was a good thing Faith was already in a forward roll. She squeezed off a third shot as Faith slammed into her legs and dragged her to the ground. Blow to the back of the head. Not nearly as safe as Giles made it look--that man must have a skull of steel--but safer than letting the woman keep firing at her.  
"She's attacking the guards!" _Goddamnit!!_  
And a squad in riot gear entered the yard.  
There was no way this was coincidence. They'd layered their threats--to make her drop her guard, probably; to ensure that the backup of the backup had backup, certainly; and most importantly, to make it look as if Faith had done the escalating. Well, she could handle this too.  
"You! Hands in the air!"  
Faith put her hands in the air. Not the way they wanted. She had no name for the stance she assumed, though she had used it many times. It was the stance Slayers used, she figured. She put her fists up; she spread her feet out; she stood almost straight, crouching just enough to show readiness to attack.  
She launched herself forward like a bolt of thunder. Faith feinted low, as if to sweep out the legs of her nearest opponent, and struck high. Riot helmet cracked into riot helmet, and two guards were down. Too close for the rest to open fire; she was in the midst of them now. Knee to groin. Knee to groin. That was two more, though only the one on her left was shrieking in agony; people didn't seem to understand that a groin attack hurt a woman _almost_ as much as a man.  
That left two standing. Her fist went through the face shield of the one on her right.  
The last one shoved his gun at her face and fired. Her kick swept his legs out from under him, just an instant too late.  
Faith parted her lips and spat the bullet from between her teeth. She hadn't realized she could do that. Then again, how else would you find out? Foot to gut. That was the last one. The other inmates were cowering along the wall, hoping not to be noticed. Now she either needed to pound on the door and shout for help--which might work or might get her riddled with bullets--or else it was time to make like a tree and skedaddle.  
Yeah, it was clear how _her_ mind worked. She took a running jump, kicked off the backboard of the basketball goal, and landed atop the barbed wire over the chain link fence. From there--  
"Open fire! Shoot to kill!"  
More riot gear. A full SWAT team just outside the fence.  
A little niggling presence was creeping up on her, a tiny but mysterious figure whose name was Fear. Fear that her unseen enemy would just keep escalating until they got her. Gunfire shrieked past her like invisible traffic on the freeway, and she ran for her life, leaping from the end of the fence.  
They were waiting when she came down. She landed in a sprawl of bodies, scrambling, slamming her feet wherever she could find purchase, trying to rise and run for it. Someone clubbed her in the head with a gun butt; she barely noticed in all the confusion. Arms seized hers and yanked her down. "Dodge this, you little bitch," one of them snarled, and held a gun to her face. Thrashing, she was too filled with fury to stop fighting and hope he spared her. Not that he would anyway, not now. With ten people atop her, she lunged sideways, rolling her head.  
There was a roar in her ear as the bullet creased her skin and ricocheted off her skull into the pavement. Faith felt something hot on her forehead--probably blood--and the furious shooter put the gun's barrel to her eye. "Let's have done with it."  
roar without sound  
words without speech  
sight without comprehension  
Get the paddles! in v-fib! Now! Now!  
Thought we weren't supposed to  
Not gone yet  
Back of her head blown out she's  
Paddles on her chest Fire all through her  
Clear!  
Come back to us  
Clear!  
you bitch  
Clear!  
just for a second  
"We've got a pulse she's..."  
Gray  
noth  
ing  
*****  
"Well?"  
"The op went well as far as killing Lehane."  
"And?" Holland Manners was being short with him.  
"I don't know, bossman. They restarted her heart; she's in the hospital. And...there's a power core gone from the Prison. We saw it vanish. But we don't know where it is."  
"Knox, son, you know as well as I do: that's unacceptable." So disappoint.  
"I think maybe what we were detecting wasn't the power cores so much as their interaction with the Prison. When it left, there was nothing there for us to pick up. We can't find it. I've got no idea where to start."  
"So it's just...out there. Wandering. In the head of some poor girl who has no idea what she's carrying around with her. Isn't that a shame? No idea how to fulfill her purpose. No purpose, really. Is that the kind of legacy you want to leave, Knox?" Shake of the head. Sad stare.  
"No, sir, it really isn't. Please give me another chance. We have the remaining option with the laser."  
"Explain to me what the laser's going to do, Knox." Holland could be so fatherly when he wants. Knox didn't care much for his own father. The old man was, after all, only human.  
"What we're calling a crack is not so much a crack in the purely physical sense. There is a region of the Prison that forms an intererence pattern. A power core can slip out through it, but only if certain parameters are met. We think that's how they were reprogrammed to seek out young girls. The pattern burns programming restrictions into them, so to speak. Using the laser will burn out the interference pattern and turn that region completely transparent."  
"Which will allow the powers to escape." Knox nodded. "Can we stop them from just flooding out? Because, son, you don't want to find out what I might have to do to someone who causes the company a disaster on that scale."  
"I believe that we can pulse the laser in a way that will only temporarily negate the pattern. It'll have to be timed exactly right to let one out instead of four or five." Knox was hedging. He thought he could do it, but the truth was this was all speculation. "And without the interference pattern, it'll go for the nearest suitable host according to its original programming, which should make it easier to find." _I hope._  
"It had better be right the first time, Knox. One loss is bad enough." Manners frowned, thinking. "I'm going to consult with Lilah on this matter. If she agrees with me, we'll go ahead. If she disagrees...well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Back to the laboratory, son. Get your laser properly timed, and we'll see."  
*****  
Lilah knew she should tell Holland Manners no.  
"I'm not certain we have any other options that will meet our obligations, now that we've made them." Holland paced back and forth, a sign of how extremely upset he was. "But if any further problems arise, our lives may be on the line even if the Senior Partners forgive us."  
Darla just sat quietly in the corner and watched. It wasn't like her. She kept her eyes on LIlah, searching for any sign of weakness. Still, from what Lilah knew of her she'd much rather be out making trouble of her own, not waiting to see whether this operation went to pieces. Drusilla danced around the room, comparing everyone to her imaginary dolls.  
"I really do want your input, Lilah. We have no good options at this point. I personally am inclined to think the laser release is our best bet, but if you think it'll backfire on us, _please_. Speak your mind."  
_We don't actually know what we're playing with, Holland._ The words caught in her throat. _We need to look out for our guaranteed interests, not double down and bet again._  
"It's your call, Holland. You're the man in charge here."  
"And I'll take the fall if it goes badly, is that what you're suggesting?"  
Lilah threw up her hands. "Of course you will," she admitted. "That's just the way it goes. I'm not looking to betray you; I owe you a lot. I honestly believe that it's a better alternative than apologizing and shipping the Prison back to Sunnyhell."  
"Your honesty means a lot to me, Lilah. Thank you. I'll tell Knox to go forward, then."  
_Stop!_ a small part of her wanted to tell him. _You're rubbing the wrong lamp here and there's no telling what genie you'll let out._ Only, going through with it was her best imaginable chance for advancement. She could rocket past everyone in the favor of the Wolf, Ram, and Hart, if only she did this for them.  
She held her tongue and let him walk away.  
*****  
Doctor Patel took one look at Lehane's chart and shook his head. "I can't imagine what they're keeping her on life support for. I know she came back from a supposedly permanent coma before, but virtually her entire occipital lobe is gone. This is.... If she's aware at all in there, all this is doing is prolonging her suffering."  
"This is what her guardians wanted," the nurse pointed out. "They constitute her next of kin, so unless and until we can prove they're in serious error regarding her well-being, it's not our place to overrule them."  
"Yes, but...." Was there really a 'but' here? Well, perhaps there was. "Let's get a good look at those papers. She deserves to pass on, doesn't she? Not be anchored forever to a life she can't have?"  
"Might be premature, doc!"  
Patel looked up to see Denise Jones rush in. The intern was promising--intelligent and generally level-headed. Why did she seem so agitated now? "How so?" he said, trying not to sound contemptuous. It was important to humor people with talent sometimes, so as not to crush them.  
"I read up on her old paperwork and she had some unusual tissue workups done, back in the day. So I took samples."  
"Of her brain?" Dr. Patel shook his head. "I know there's no chance of revival, but that's risky behavior with any relatives or guardians, Denise."  
"Actually, sir, um...I'm seeing signs of...that is, she's...there's growth, sir. Slow growth, but steady. I can't say what her memory will be like after this, but...she's regenerating."  
*****  
Darla leaned in closer. “Tell me something, Lilah. You ever think of taking over this place?”  
Lilah eyed the vampire warily. She was altogether too close to Lilah’s neck. At least Drusilla had gone out for a snack. “Not really. I mean, Holland’s spot is cushy, but he also has the constant attention and, ahem, supervision of the Senior Partners. I don’t think I want that.”  
Darla’s smirk grew wider. “I don’t think you’re understanding me. I’m not talking about taking over from Holland Manners. I’m talking about taking over from the Senior Partners.”  
There was a long silence before Lilah responded to this notion. “What.”  
“I’m saying, serve no master but your own ambition.”  
Finally Lilah understood. “You want to turn me. Look, Darla, I appreciate the notion but I don’t think even that will get me out of the perpetuity clause—“  
Darla slammed a hand down on her shoulder. “You don't get it. I’m not proposing to turn you. I am offering you something much, much better.”  
“Better than….” There was a moment, at last, when it sank in. The enormity of what Holland had done. The utter, mind-blowing stupidity of it. And the opportunity that it represented. Not for Holland. Not even for the Wolf, Ram, and Hart.  
For her.  
“You have a deal.”  
Darla’s face contorted, and Lilah saw up close what she had only ever seen from a comfortable distance, even with Angel. The change. “Vamping out.” Darla’s demonic face rose to break the surface of her humanity, and her jaws clamped shut on Lilah Morgan’s neck. Life drained out of Lilah’s veins. Her heartbeat slowed and stuttered. Her lungs labored to breathe. Blackness closed in.  
Darla clawed open her left wrist and pressed it to Lilah’s lips, and Lilah drank eagerly, greedily. That was the metaphysics of it, after all. Blood equaled life. More life than Lilah could ever have imagined consuming, possessing. Something changed in Darla’s eyes. “Enough.” Lilah kept drinking. “I said enough. Stop!”  
Lilah tried. She honestly did make the attempt. The order was beyond her capability to follow. Power flowed down her throat. Power spread through her body. She could no more have stopped than a tree could stop drinking in the sun. Darla’s face grew gaunt. “Stop it! I didn’t-- Stop! Please!” The vampire broke apart into dust that scattered as if on an invisible wind and was gone.  
Lilah sagged. Her body felt full to bursting with power. Yet at the same time, her legs were buckling beneath her. Her heart stopped. Her lungs refused to inflate. Her…her thoughts….  
Lilah crumpled to the floor like the paperwork for a rejected appeal.  
*****  
Holland Manners' concerned face swam in and out of her vision. "Lilah? LIlah, are you there?"  
Lilah blinked slowly. "I suppose I am. What happened?" Speech seemed difficult; some of her words wanted to slur together.  
"I was hoping you could tell me. There's no sign of Darla, and Drusilla is in no state to talk to us. Though I must say she's difficult to understand at the best of times. She's been either ecstatic or distraught, and it's hard to say which."  
"Well, I was under the impression that Darla turned me. In which case, no, technically, I'm not really here, am I?" She slid her hands underneath her and tried to sit up.  
"What a horrible conclusion to have to make," Manners said, and gently attempted to hold her back. "As it happens, we expected so. You've been lying here for five days with no vital signs. But we were alerted to your waking by the fact that your breathing resumed on its own and your body temperature returned to normal. It is very metabolically obvious that you're alive."  
Lilah showed him a puzzled frown. "What about my heartbeat?"  
"Well, there's the rub, Lilah. You don't have one. And though you show no other anatomical signs, your canine teeth have elongated. You do have a reflection, so there is that. Frankly, we're having some problems determining _what_ you are."  
"And Darla? Why's Drusilla so upset?"  
"She insists Darla turned to dust and is gone. Except when she insists that Darla is still here. We can't make heads or tails of her account. We've actually been considering putting her on anti-psychotics."  
_**Well, she's right on both counts. I suppose this could have its perks.**_  
_Excuse me? Darla?_  
_**In the flesh. Your flesh instead of mine. Pay attention to the nice man.**_  
"...Lilah? Did you hear me? I said that vampires are known to respond to at least some psychotherapeutic drugs, if not always well."  
"Well, it won't come to that, I don't think. If I'm not dead, I can't very well be a vampire, now can I?" She gave Manners her most winning smile.  
"True, true. And in all honesty, you know we don't care about any of that. Your perpetuity clause would still hold and frankly, I can't think of a better place for you but to keep you in the courts, on our side. We _are_ going to give you a full medical workup, but have no fear--I'm sure it will show you have a clean bill of health." He rose from her bedside. "I'm going to let you recover, Lilah. Get yourself some rest."  
"Thank you, Holland. I'll see you soon." _Darla? Is that you? What the hell happened?_  
**_Your guess is as good as mine. I've been awake a little while, but you have total control of the body, I'm afraid._**  
As soon as she heard Holland close the outer door, Lilah sat up hastily and went into the bathroom. There she was in the...no. That wasn't her in the mirror. Holland had said he saw her reflection, but what _she_ saw, at least, was Darla in Lilah's hospital gown, who gazed at the image with a certain degree of wonder.  
_**I see it too. Wow, it's been ages. Sorry I can't tell you if it's real.**_  
_We'll work that out soon enough. So you made as if to turn me and then...this happened. Whatever it is._  
_**I haven't the faintest idea what came over me. Suddenly I just wasn't myself. I'd never have tried that on my own. Hey, till I get out of here, I expect you to let me have some fun every now and then. Don't worry, no blood. The idea makes me nauseous.**_ Darla pretended to gag herself over the sink. So very dramatic.  
_We'll see. Depends on what you want._  
**_Sex. Drugs. Maybe rock and roll? I'm not exactly a woman of my own time._**  
Lilah studied the other woman's expression in the mirror. Darla looked amused, but also...desperate. Confused and dismayed at her situation, no doubt. _Okay, well...I'll get those things and see if you can enjoy them. Fair enough?_  
Darla shrugged and waggled her head from side to side. _**It'll have to do.**_  
*****  
Lilah made herself up a little--they'd left her purse with her--and strolled casually out of the bathroom. With a little persuasion, she'd be out of this two-bit company medical facility and back home in half an hour or so. She had her suit half on when a whirlwind burst through the door.  
"Let her out let her out _let grandmum out_!" Drusilla tore into her with the raging fury of a mad hellspawn--which she was, of course. Talons sliced her dress; fangs snapped at her throat. " _Grandmum!_ They're all gone! I'm all alone! Daddy and Grandmum and my sweet prince! How dare you take her! How dare you--?"  
The torrent of screams halted as Drusilla realized she was no longer clawing at Lilah. Her arms were pinned fast to the wall. By Lilah. Who was holding her with barely a struggle. Lilah could feel the strain in her muscles, but not to the immense degree that should have been required to hold a vampire of Dru's caliber. That should have taken a professional wrestler. Or two. Or five. Lilah stared curiously at the vampire. Something--an alien form with green scales, tiny pebbled horns on its forehead, a maw of sharp teeth--was transparently superimposed on the shape of a human girl.  
"Be in--" Drusilla began an attempt at entrancing Lilah...then her eyes widened and her mouth closed.  
_**Dru? Sweetheart? Can you hear me? You could always hear me, even when I didn't want you to.**_  
"Grandmum?" Drusilla sniffled. "You sound so far away. Why are you so far away from me?"  
Lilah realized her best choice here was silence. _**I don't know. Poor Drusilla. I'm so sorry. But I have a pet for us to play with. Lilah, would you mind?**_  
Though she'd never been prudish, the torrent of emotion and desire coming from Darla was alien to Lilah. Drusilla was simultaneously granddaughter and lover. Well, when sex was entirely divorced from reproduction, Lilah supposed something was bound to give way. _I've been involved in much stranger things since I joined the firm._ Which was also entirely true. "Dru, dear, I don't mind. Please, though, keep the bloodplay to a minimum. It wouldn't do to hurt grandmum while she's inside me."  
"Oh. Oh dear. Poor grandmum. How sad for her." Drusilla's tenderness seemed at odds with her yellow eyes and sharp fangs, yet Lilah couldn't help feel that it was genuine. Dru's fangs brushed against Lilah's neck, but only brushed. Her lips came to rest on Lilah's.  
Well, what the hell. Lilah returned the kiss, even going so far as to nick her tongue on Drusilla's fangs. Drusilla moaned and snuggled against her. Inside Lilah's head, Darla moaned back. It was just another way of sleeping your way to the top, Lilah supposed. She almost asked Darla if she remembered the offer she'd made, then thought better of it. This was not the time.  
*****  
_Darla?_ Lilah wondered idly if anyone had been watching them on the monitors. Well, she hoped they'd enjoyed the show. Lilah was certainly not repulsed by women, and she'd been attracted to a few in her day. Just not so many as she had men. Drusilla was quite pretty, though it was hard to get past her cold clamminess even in the throes of passion. The little thing was curled up under her left arm at present, every now and then snoring faintly. _Was it good for you too?_  
_**Delightful. A little distant, but not so much that I couldn't enjoy it.**_  
_Great! Now tell me what that offer was about earlier, and I'll go home and get us good and drunk._ That would be a start on the drugs part, at least. Probably Darla had more exotic tastes in mind, at least eventually.  
_**I'll be honest. I'm not entirely sure. I meant every word, though, including taking over from the Senior Partners.**_  
_The powers stored in the Prison. That must be it. I don't know why they went into you first, though, or why they didn't just empower you._ Lilah found that she was idly stroking Drusilla's hair. Dru stirred and ran a hand up Lilah's side.  
**_Well, if they were meant to make Slayers..._**  
_That could be it. I don' t know. I do know that I saw the demon in Dru when she came into the room. The actual demon inside her body._ She couldn't see it right now, though she wasn't sure why that mattered. _Also, I forced her off me right after, when she attacked. I was stronger than she was. _That wasn't the degree of power she needed to replace the Senior Partners, but it was power.__  
_**Who says that's all you can do?**_  
_Well, let's give Dru a chance to wake up. Then we'll find out if there's more._ This was nice, but there had better be more. It was a taste of power, sure.  
Lilah wanted the all-you-can-eat buffet.  
*****  
She knew she shouldn't be here, not dressed like this. That was what they'd say, at least, though of course that would (and should) never fly in court. As a matter of practicality, though, strolling down the street after dark in this part of town in a dress that was little more than lingerie was a blatant invitation.  
_**In my day, they'd have put you in the stocks just for wearing it.**_  
_Ah, the morals of the righteous._ Lilah tried to understand why the catcalls were so intermittent and suddenly realized they were starting up when she passed beneath streetlights. It was so dark that she was near-invisible away from them. Well, as long as she was attracting attention.  
Just in case, she had stashed pepper spray and a handgun in her purse, but she didn't expect to need them. She had manhandled Drusilla with ease. Unless she encountered something like a Fyarl demon, she anticipated a very satisfying evening.  
"Hey babe! You advertisin'?" A group of three was approaching, each of them a bruiser.  
Lilah put on her best neutral expression and let a hint of fear creep into her eyes. "Not for sale, boys. I just want to walk."  
"Dressed like that? C'mon, baby, gimme a kiss." That one grabbed her by the wrist.  
Lilah wrenched herself free. Or rather, tried to. Her hand slid out of his with so little effort that she nearly stumbled backwards. He might as well have been a child. She drew back her fist and slammed him in the face.  
"Ow!" Lilah pulled her hand back. Not only had she hurt herself, he barely even looked dazed. And angry. _What the hell? Darla?_  
_**Try grabbing and holding him.**_  
_If you say so._ Lilah seized him by the wrist and twisted. Not only did he cry out in pain, in half a moment she had wrenched him around in front of her, hands caught behind his back.  
_**Something about this is off. I don't know quite what's happening, but...you tried to roundhouse him in the face and that failed. But holding him, even dragging him around, that's working. Know any other holds? Or something more subtle than a fist in the face?**_  
Lilah slammed the one she had into his nearest ally, sending them both down in a flailing heap. The third came for her, and she dodged nimbly aside, jabbing him in the ribs as she did so. She felt something crack. At the last moment, she slipped a foot between his, sending him to the ground. At once she dropped down next to him. _Maybe it's the quipping?_ She'd known demons with weirder power sets than that. "Were you this rough with your first girl? Or was she this rough with you? Is it only good for you that way?"  
The thug blinked at her and recoiled. "What do you know about my first time?" Struggling to his feet, he stared at her wide-eyed, shaking his pointing finger at her. "Nobody knows about that! Nobody! What are you, lady, some kind of witch?"  
She drew herself up proudly and gave him her most vicious smirk. "What do _you_ think?"  
"Clear out, guys. This one's got some kind of freaky mind powers." Without another word, the bruised would-be rapists clambered to their feet and scurried away, tails between their legs.  
_That was great, once I got it working right. But what the hell did I do there? He seemed to think I'd read his mind, but I don't have a clue what he was talking about._  
_**I don't think you read his memories,**_ Darla responded. _**I couldn't tell exactly what you did, but I felt something...I think you changed them. I think he had a good first time, but you ruined his memory of it.**_  
_Huh. He deserves it._ Lilah thought about what she'd learned so far and decided it was time to get moving. She could try something else tomorrow. _But, Darla, I've never heard of the Slayer having powers like that._  
__**As far as I know, she doesn't. I don't know what was in the Prison exactly, but...I think you're something else. Something else entirely.**


	7. Urban Renewal

Three days. They'd been walking for three days. Buffy's feet weren't sore, exactly, but she welcomed any chance to sit down. Even for this. "Okay, I'm done." There wasn't any toilet paper out here. She wasn't sure there was any toilet paper in this world. "Don't you ever have to take a leak?"  
Sulumor shrugged and yawned. "No. Don't you ever have to sleep?" Buffy had thought surely she could keep walking all day and get there faster that way, but Sulumor had denied it, and then had to sleep most of the night anyway.  
"Your point is valid," Buffy said grumpily. The split rock was a lousy seat anyway. "I don't know if I packed enough food for the trip. You do have to eat, don't you?"  
Sulumor laughed grimly. "I think there's a Malfean charm that lets you eat anything. Want to try some sand?" Buffy stuck her tongue out at the woman. "If you're hungry enough, I'll call up some locusts. They're magically delicious."  
Buffy didn't mean to burst out laughing at that. Sulumor huffed at her and started to turn away. "I'm sorry. That was...you'd understand the joke if you' spent any time in my world. I know it wasn't intentional, and I _am_ hungry."  
The other woman shrugged at her. "They really are tasty. **Locust Mana Plague**."  
A vast thrumming sound rose up from the sands around them, followed by a rustling like falling rain. The sands shifted, and from between the grains crawled insects like grasshoppers, though rather than brown or green these shimmered with every color of the rainbow. The faint moonlight sparkled on them for a few moments as they thronged around Buffy and Sulumor. The thrumming of their wings ceased. Buffy saw a few of them topple over. "They just...died?"  
"They're here to feed us. They serve no other purpose. There is a greater charm that would cause them to eat any other food in the area, but it still lies beyond my grasp." She picked up a handful of locusts and began to pop them into her mouth, abdomen first.  
Buffy took a few curiously into her hands. They did smell oddly sweet, like a loaf of spicy bread. She tasted one. "Like mom used to make," she said softly. "It's like...I can't remember exactly what."  
"The effect is magical," Sulumor explained. "To me, they seem rather savory, like a good meal of roast meat, but I expect the flavor is quite different to you. Cecelyne expects repayment, but she is generous after her fashion."  
"Hm." Eating the insects would have seemed gross not too long ago, but Buffy had gotten used to demon guts all over her favorite clothes. And they really were delicious, magically or not. She decided it was better not to ask how they were repaying Cecelyne. "Thanks for the food. I know that you're just acting on orders, but you've been nicer to me than most of the supposed good guys in this world so far."  
That made Sulumor smile. "Ask yourself why that is, Buffy, and what loyalty you really owe them."  
*****  
The tattooing was long and more than a little painful. "So the pain circuits were broken, but it still wasn't really safe to take it off. Or at least I was afraid to risk it. By that time I'd learned a lot about what you could gather in the woods. The Pyleans had agriculture, but some of the food they liked couldn't really be grown; you had to find it wild."  
Sage of the Depths worked the needle. Some of the tattoos were flowing curves, but he had seemed surprised that other parts--on her neck, for instance--had formed into circuit patterns under his fingers. He wasn't totally unfamiliar with them--he knew Luthe's machinery--but he wasn't used to anyone else who understood such things. "How long did you live there?"  
"A couple of years. I had trouble keeping track. Even the seasons there were different. I spent most of that time trying to work out the words and equations that would open a portal and let me go home, but I was missing key information. I must have opened a dozen portals, but in Pylea they were opening in a few fixed locations that weren't anywhere near me."  
"But they were opening. Curious." Sage of the Depths began a long spiral pattern near the edge of her left breast. One like it already adorned her right. She'd been a little embarrassed at first, but the Sage had been utterly professional. Besides, it wasn't as if her boobs were anything to look twice at.  
"Wormhole physics required it. They had to open somewhere in response to the sounds I was making. Wesley insists that it was a magical phenomenon, like an incantation. I suppose you could look at it that way, but it's as much a part of science as...well, the lights in here." She wasn't really sure they were electric.  
"You can make these larger if you like," the Sage said. Fred blinked at him for a moment before realizing he'd changed the subject. "The essence of Lunar magic has to do with changing shape. If you want bigger breasts, it will be a simple matter for you to have them."  
Fred blushed. "Well, that'd be pretty cool. I'll look into it." He must have read her expressions better than she realized. "It's not my top priority though."  
"Of course not." Somehow the spiral pattern made her breasts look concave from above rather than convex. As if they were a pair of twin wormholes. The tattoos were meant to be symbolic, of course, but she hadn't thought about exactly what that meant. "So you were unable to leave Pylea on your own."  
"If I'd been able to move freely I would have eventually found a spot where I could open a gate, but no, I had to wait. The wormhole areas were all under the control of the kingdom's priesthood. I guess it was a vital part of the economy, capturing slaves."  
"It fills you with rage to see people enslaved, doesn't it?" The Sage was nearing the spiral's center.  
"In my time, in my world, almost anybody would be furious. My home country fought a war to end slavery. It's horrible."  
"You said your friend wasn't so enraged." The needle reached her areola, producing a flash of sharper pain.  
"S-she was looking out for us first," Fred said, gritting her teeth. "Buffy was more worried about getting us all home than about changing anything here. And I understood, even if I didn't really agree, but it still made me angry. I know she wasn't pleased to see the slaves, she just...had other priorities."  
The sharpest pain, and then that section was done. Sage of the Depths moved on. "I think my first test will be of your wisdom," he said. "There are many subsystems of Luthe that have long been inactive. Leviathan could repair them, but he no longer comes aboard, for he rarely changes form and never to anything that could walk these halls. Swims-in-Shadow and I come from a more enlightened time than this, but he was a shaman from a primitive tribe, and even I remember only the technology of the Shogunate, which was never so grand as that of the High First Age."  
"You want me to try?" It wasn't even that much of a surprise that he asked, but she knew already that the technology aboard Luthe was more advanced even than she was used to.  
"The Realm is destabilizing without the Scarlet Empress to guide it. Chaos lurks on every front. Most of Luthe's weapons have been unneeded for ages, but the time is perhaps coming when they must be fired again, whether we face Lintha pirates, hordes of Fair Folk, or ships crewed by the walking dead. I do not know if you can repair any of them, but I would like to see you try your hand."  
She'd have to hunt for technical manuals. Well, hunting was hunting. And certainly she knew things that no one else of her own world and time publicly knew. Maybe she was up to the task. "I'll do it if I can."  
Sage of the Depths chuckled. "You are a Lunar Exalt, child. Not that you already know all things, but remember: nothing is ultimately impossible for you." He began to make the first tattoos on her belly.  
Fred thought of Buffy leaping from atop a spray of water and nodded. "There is no try," she said gravely.  
*****  
First there was a speck on the horizon. Slowly it grew larger. Slowly, and then more rapidly as Xander adjusted his course. The ship was not all that large, but it bore three masts, and certainly it was larger than his little raft. Xander had figured out easily that he was sailing south, but that wasn't any help if he didn't know where land lay. The ship was east of him, bearing north, and finally someone must have spotted him, because a small boat was lowered into the water eventually and headed toward him. Xander stopped feeding the sharks. Having his rescuers eaten would be a bad thing. "Go on, boy," he said quietly, and hoped the big fish would listen.  
The boat heaved up beside him, crewed by three short-haired, tattooed women. In his own hometown, he'd have said they looked extraordinarily butch in their short, open leather jackets, tight pants, and work boots, but you never knew what another culture would consider feminine when you weren't even on Earth any more. Two of the three had on midriff-baring shirts that did nothing in particular to their chests, but the third was wearing some kind of tight constraining wrap. "Ho, traveler! Not much of a boat you have there! Ship go down without you?"  
Xander spread his hands and gave them a winning smile. "You have no idea how true that is, or how upset I was, ladies."  
The women in the boat glanced at each other, scowling. Finally the tallest one sighed. "Get in the boat, man. Unless you intend to drift till you hit An-Teng. A shame if you died of thirst out here in the ocean."  
"That would indeed suck," Xander agreed, though he'd discovered for himself that he could drink seawater. They had no way of knowing that, and it would probably still take weeks or even months to reach An-Teng. Wherever that was. "I'm sorry if I've offended you somehow."  
They looked at each other again and shrugged as he climbed aboard, leaving his ruined pants and shirt but taking the bag with the scraps of the food Shaia had left him. "We'll discuss it on board _Distant Obsidian Shores_...outlander?"  
"More of an outlander than you know, ladies." The shortest one, the one with the wrap around her chest, punched him in the ribs and glared. "Sorry. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but I'm sorry."  
"Just keep your mouth shut till you can talk to the captain."  
Xander settled onto the lone remaining bench and stayed there, waiting, until they reached the ship. Closer scrutiny revealed that it wasn't only the rowboat that was full of women; everyone aboard that he could see was, and wore similar clothing and hairstyles. Only about one in five seemed to be attempting to conceal her chest, but they all tramped about the ship in pretty much the same manner, and not one of them had long hair save a couple who wore mohawks.  
He bowed deeply while the boat was being loaded back up. "Might I ask where the captain is?"  
A relatively light-skinned (and at that, heavily tanned from years of sun exposure) middle-aged woman in a better cut of coat bowed back to him, just a little. "I am Captain Tya Redfang Grelidaka of the _Distant Obsidian Shores_." One of the three who had picked him up whispered in the captain's ear. "I see. Welcome aboard, outlander. Before you give further offense to my crew, however unintentional, let me inform you: unless you're a Dereth who's lost her sash along with the rest of her clothes, everyone on board this ship is a man. Am I clear on that?"  
Xander gulped and scratched his head. "Um. Sorry, Captain. Um, sir."  
"Good. You'll be fine. We'll be in port in a day or two. Enjoy the trip."  
*****  
"So far, nearly all the...charms I've learned are combat-related," Buffy said, a little dejectedly. "You mean I could have been feeding people too?" They'd eaten hearty and spent the next few hours trudging along slowly.  
"You don't think it's worthwhile to be able to fight?" Sulumor frowned at her in puzzlement. "If my people had been there to attack yours, you would have been your friends' best hope of survival."  
"Well, of course it's worthwhile. I just...Look, Mom once told me that all I ever did was react. And she was under a spell at the time, but eventually I figured out that there was some truth to it. If demons left humans alone--if _people_ would leave each other alone--fighting wouldn't really be necessary. We could feed people, invent things, explore."  
"It's not too late to learn those things," Sulumor said. "The ancient Solars lived for thousands of years. I would expect we'll do the same. Even Dragon-Blooded live a few centuries. You have time. And what keeps you from using your strength and invulnerability in construction, for instance? Or to explore places where no one else can go?"  
"Just my mission, I guess. I was in college for a while--um, a kind of advanced school. But when Glory tried to kidnap my sister I ended up having to quit." _Thousands_ of years? Surely that had to be a legend. But it wasn't as if Slayers ever died of old age. "Cyan told me a couple of times that I was perfectly capable of being super-smart if I tried."  
"You are. And more easily than a Solar ever could. A Solar would have to learn an entirely different Excellency. You merely need the proper perspective. One of two proper perspectives, in your case. And you're no doubt right about what you said yesterday; I would gain little by being able to emulate She Who Lives in Her Name, for instance, but the Malfean perspective and the Ebon Dragon's are quite different, so your capabilities are expanded more than a little."  
"How would I go about being super-smart? I'm not sure I can see how that works." Her shoes had gotten full of sand in that last dune. She pulled one of them off. How come Sulumor's weird sexy nun costume wasn't always itchy and gritty?  
"Well, going with Malfeas...remember first to be bold, not timid. If asked, say what comes first to mind and don't be afraid. Think of strategy, or of weapons design. If you must do something peaceful, try to do it in a way that demonstrates how powerful you are. Don't just cook; rain food from the heavens. Don't just build; raise a temple to yourself." Sulumor grinned briefly at her; she thought Buffy should do that anyway. "As for the Ebon Dragon, everything must benefit you first and most, but that doesn't prevent you from helping others as well."  
"I have to live in the world, so saving it is still a good."  
"Exactly. The Dragon is subtle, but many esoteric theories require a subtle mind; he is secretive, but much knowledge is secret. Don't reveal your ideas to others unless paid, preferably at a sizable profit. Compete with other savants; the Dragon is a principle of opposition, not cooperation. If you have to share for some reason, leak the information instead of giving it openly, or tempt others to take it from you. And counter-intuitive though it may be, work amidst those who think the knowledge you seek is immoral. Just don't risk anyone storming your sanctum."  
_So if I ever make it home, go into stem-cell research._ "I think I get it. What about you?"  
Sulumor looked bitter. "I think my prior incarnation rather soured me on invention. But Cecelyne's method is easy. She is thorough and cautious, a careful planner. Yet when she reveals her innovations to others, she does it much as Malfeas does--as a great wonder, a miracle handed down to her followers."  
Buffy looked up; something had glimmered in the distance, but it must have been the sun sparkling on sand. "To change the subject--Cyan said there was some kind of extreme hazing ritual that happens when we get to Malfeas. I didn't go through it the first time because they weren't ready for me yet, but...it sounded unpleasant."  
Sulumor answered with a wry twist to her expression. "Ah. Yes, she would tell you about that. Fortunately, she misled you."  
"Figures."  
"The first Green Sun Princes were so treated. The very first circle, in fact, deployed as a full circle in creation about a month earlier than the date usually given. That is how long it took the coven to self-destruct. The Fiend easily manipulated the Slayer into killing the Malefactor and the Scourge into killing the Defiler, then each other. Lastly the Fiend killed himself. The Ebon Dragon, ironically enough, was the one to realize how badly they had mangled the personalities of their Chosen and demanded that the practice not be continued, out of sheer pragmatism. There may be unpleasantness when we reach Malfeas, but more likely it will come from our fellows, not from the Yozis or their souls. When I received my orders, you were in very good standing with our masters."  
"And they won't be mad that I've done nothing for five days?"  
"They know how long it takes to get to and from Malfeas, Buffy. They summoned you." Sulumor squinted into the distance. "We might see glimpses, but we will not be there for another day and a half, roughly speaking."  
Buffy said nothing for a while until Sulumor turned to look at her. "Sorry. Just trying to think of ways to make the trip more bearable with my charms, since I can't go any faster."  
Sulumor seemed to be counting up something on her fingers. "Not sure. From what you've told me, I can't think of much. I suppose we could stop and play around with them, or you could practice something new. Do you dance? Malfeas loves to dance."  
"What?" Buffy's jaw dropped. "He's a city, isn't he?"  
"And you think that stops him?"  
*****  
"I know what you're thinking." Sage of the Depths watched Fred as they walked through the corridors. "But you have not considered it deeply enough. Did you not encounter the Dragon-Blooded in the Lap, and did they not attack you? They are traitors and usurpers and they deserve all that we have done to them."  
"The Dragon-Blooded we met there were horrible, but they seemed to think we were insane monsters called Anathema." Hungry faces watched her surreptitiously. "But these people...what have they done? How long have they been living like this? How is this better than what they do?"  
The Sage spun on his heel. "It is better because these are _Traitorspawn_ , Unblooded. They cannot be trusted. They can never be trusted. They would betray us the moment they were free. Even if it were true what they said, that the Solars were mad, even then, why did they not try to help us? They were not our equals in power, let alone the Solars' equals, but they numbered in the hundreds of thousands. You say your world has levels of technology approaching the Shogunate's, and you had no Exalted at all. Why did they not seek a cure?"  
"I don't know," Fred said plaintively. "I don't know their side of the story. Maybe they were too afraid of you. Maybe they tried and you treated it like a rebellion. I don't have any way of knowing."  
"They came armed to the Calibration feast. They ambushed and murdered the Solars, and then they tried to track down both us and any Solars who escaped. They would have killed the Gold Faction had there been any strength left to it."  
Fred threw her hands into the air. "I'm hundreds and hundreds of years too late to understand what happened, Sage. And these people have paid for what their ancestors did for the same amount of time. Haven't they been punished enough?"  
The Sage sneered at her. "Never. They will never have been punished enough. Come along if you want to see the Essence batteries. Stop gawking at those who deserve their suffering."  
Haltingly Fred followed him, searching. There seemed to be nothing living in the station but the people and some hydroponic plants. Maybe there were fish in the flooded lower levels, but that'd be useless up here.  
A cockroach skittered out from underfoot.  
Whatever she had to do.  
*****  
Xander was dozing in a hammock in the cargo hold when it suddenly pitched him out. The ship was turning, and turning very fast. He struggled to his feet to see women...er, men...running every which way. Rather than stop anyone from going about important business, he hurried up the ladder to the deck.  
A great ship was bearing down on them, a ship driven on black and silver sails. The _Distant Obsidian Shores_ was trying to come around, and everyone aboard was grabbing up weapons or securing the rigging. Finally Xander spotted the captain on a higher deck and bounded up the stairs. "I'm guessing pirates?"  
"The worst, outlander. Lintha raiders, possibly slavers. If you want to live, or even die well, prepare for battle. I'll have a spare weapon found for you."  
Xander just nodded. He wasn't exactly inexperienced in a fight, and there was always the chance his new superpowers would turn the tide. Might be best to wait until the violence actually started before showing off, though; who knew what would happen if there were Dragon-Blooded on the ship? They might just pitch him to the pirates in hopes of buying them off. "Get me a sword, if you've got any." Probably he could handle that without killing himself.  
"Auberge, get this man a sword and a spear! Go with him, outlander!" Xander scooted.  
"You're sure you can handle this?" Auberge had added so many tattoos to the basic zigzags that Xander wasn't really sure what his face had originally looked like. He had a nice body, though.  
"I think I can figure it out," Xander said, trying to conceal how nervous he was. "You slice with this side, right? And you stab with this end?"  
Auberge lifted a beringed eyebrow and snorted. "Get up top. They'll be on us in a few more minutes."  
The Lintha vessel was maybe a dozen yards away The hell with it. He dashed back up to the captain. "Look, Tya Redfang, I know you don't have much reason to trust a guy you picked up lost at sea, but I need to know something. If you had a choice between Lintha pirates and a Solar Anathema, which one would you pick?"  
Tya Redfang stared at him a moment. "Right now, if the Anathema kept those pirates off my vessel I'd swear loyalty to him for a year and a day. But, Sun's truth, if you're talking about yourself, you are the worst Anathema I have ever heard of."  
It was a sign! "Ah," Xander said, "but you _have_ heard of me." The captain glared. "Look, just trust me and follow my lead. Got a crow's nest?"  
Redfang grunted, and pointed to the nearest mast. "But you'd better get up there fast."  
It was the work of a minute or so to reach the crow's nest. The pirate vessel drew abreast, and its crew hauled out boarding lines to toss.  
_Here goes...everything._ Xander lifted his sword and spear. He drew in a breath, hoping to bellow out his words, knowing they might come out as a squeak instead...and his voice boomed out at a volume that might have drowned gales. **Phantom-Conjuring Performance.** "I am the Dread Pirate Roberts! There will be no survivors! No survivors!" Sunlight flared around him as if the ship had emerged suddenly from the shadow of stormclouds, though the sky was all but clear. And he leapt, seizing a line of the rigging as he fell. "The Dread Pirate Roberts is **here for your souls!** "  
As his boots slammed onto the deck, he lifted his sword and slashed away the nearest boarding line. He heard more boots crash down beside and behind him, and glanced to one side to see a line of warriors of light beside him. They weren't really there; their swords did nothing to the boarding lines--but he saw the nearest Lintha draw back. Perhaps it was no surprise that the one to his left was Buffy, with Spike beyond her. On his right stood Willow and Tara, hands crackling with power.  
He did what he could, swinging his sword fiercely at the boarding lines. It was easier than swinging it at a person, to be sure, but he'd do that if he had to. He wished it wasn't helping that the people about to start leaping aboard were green-skinned and red-eyed. "There will be no survivors!" **Majestic Radiant Presence.**  
In spite of his best efforts, in spite of the Tya fighting next to him, the ships slammed together, and Lintha began to leap over the rails. A huge bruiser raised a sword laden with spiky protrusions, about to swing at him...and stopped, the terrible light of Xander's--well, the Dread Pirate Roberts'--anima reflected in his eyes. He turned and swung at the next nearest figure, but that was the illusion of Buffy, and his sword passed through it like a ghost. A sailor burst through the image, spearing him in the gut.  
_Got to keep it up. Keep going. Get them on the run._ "My men are here! I am here! But soon, you will not be here! All your worst nightmares have come true!" **Heart-Compelling Method.** A shock ran through his arms as his sword bit into the chest of a pirate. "I am the Dread Pirate Roberts!"  
Without warning, the few pirates who'd made it aboard the _Distant Obsidian Shores_ began to jump back over the side. They were fleeing. They were fleeing already.  
They were fleeing _from him_. And he'd managed to wound exactly one of them. "Well, hell, if I'd known it was going to be that easy, I'd have called my shark buddies."  
Tya Redfang clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Huh, you got blood on your sword after all. I suppose I really should keep my word even if you'd done nothing but the light show. What in Sun's name was that? Most pirates are cowards at heart, but I've never seen Lintha run that way."  
_May as well press the advantage here too._ "That, Captain, is the least of what a Solar can do." Not as if he were lying, after all.  
The captain went to his knees. "In that case...Dread Pirate Roberts--or whatever the bleeding hell your name is--I swear that for a year and a day my ship is at your command, to sail where you say and carry what cargo you desire. Though I hope you'll let us offload at Abalone as planned. Never thought I'd say that to anyone, let alone an Anathema." He rose to his feet and crossed his arms under his breasts.  
"Don't suppose I can get a kiss?" Redfang glared at him. He did that a lot. "So I can tell a friend of mine I kissed a guy and liked it." More glaring. "Ah, never mind. It's not that important." He started to turn away.  
Redfang seized him by the shoulder, spun him around, and kissed him with great force. It wasn't a bad kiss, Xander decided, just unexpected. "Just be sure you use those words," the captain said. "I want to see this friend's face when you do."  
Xander nodded, laughing softly to himself. Well, he'd tell Willow, as promised. But he wasn't going to explain, because he couldn't be sure if she'd congratulate him or chew him out. _Guess being a superhero doesn't make life any easier or less strange._  
*****  
Giles was starting to relax. The walls of Paragon were finally becoming visible, and after all there had been other villages along the road, places where they'd been able to stop and refresh their provisions. Their...escort, while not by any means friendly, had held to Sulumor's promises, and after the first day, when Angel and Spike had bedded down with them in the sand, he thought they might have actually begun to see at least those two as people. He shook his head. _He_ still wasn't sure he could see Angel and Spike as people. Spike still lacked a soul, and while he had done his best to paper over it in his mind, to not blame Angel for Angelus' actions, his memories of being tortured remained vivid.  
He supposed he shouldn't have worried quite so much. The Celestial Exalted were a tiny handful spread out over a vast world, and while the Dragon-Blooded were more common, they had also set themselves up as guardians of peace and order--however heavy-handed they might be. With no "Anathema" in the party, they'd been in relatively little danger from that quarter. And against ordinary brigands, they certainly had enough skill between them to have prevailed without the Dune People's protection. The only remaining discomfort was that he would far rather have traveled by day and slept by night. And bedded down on at least an air mattress. And had some tea. Surely that wasn't too much to ask for.  
The sun was sinking over the hills--it seemed the days were a little longer here, an hour or so. Spike emerged from the sand and began getting dressed. At least neither he nor Angel had embraced the Dune People's idea of fashion. They too had begun to wake. Angel, apparently, had hit the snooze button, but Giles was certain he would be up soon as well.  
There was a rush of sand. He frowned. One of the Dune People had vanished. "Willow, are you awake?" he murmured.  
"Yuh-huh." She lifted her head from Tara's leg. "Tara, time to get up. Giles, what's going on?"  
"I'm not sure. There's a disturbance." Another of the albinos disappeared in a swirl of sand. "There. Help me wake everyone, and fast."  
Another eruption of sand. This time, however, their mysterious assailant had gone for Spike. "Oi! What's this all about?" He lashed out and struck the blurred figure in the face. She staggered backward, and now Giles could see her clearly.  
She was a petite little blond girl, not so dissimilar in build from Buffy, though her face was a little rounder and her eyes a cold blue, and on it she bore a smile both brighter and colder than he had ever seen Buffy wear. "Well. Perhaps there will be a little fun in this after all."  
Her massive sword arced for Spike's neck.


	8. Malfeasance

Spike did a backflip. It wasn't his deal--he wasn't the Slayer, or some bloody cheerleader--but if you left him no choice but to do acrobatics, he could do 'em with the best. The sword swooshed by just above his nose, and his feet rose up to kick it from his assailant's hands.  
They missed.  
Well, he wasn't going to let one slip-up stop him. "Just who the bloody hell are you, anyway?" He seized her by the sword arm, meaning to yank her up, slam her into the sand, and wrench the sword out of her grip.  
She didn't budge, and her sword thrust forward at him, piercing his chest. If it'd been made of wood, he'd have been a goner, but it sliced uselessly into his heart. Sure, it hurt like mad, but that couldn't stop him.  
She looked a hell of a lot like Buffy. Like Buffy as a vampire, maybe--the only emotion he could read in her cold blue eyes was bliss at the idea that she was about to kill something. "You have a name, bint? Or--"  
"No," she hissed. "I don't." Her blade came whirling around--  
\--and Angel seized her arm from behind. "Well, then, what are we supposed to call you?" Big bleedin' poof. Well, if he was going to trounce this little bitch, Spike was happy to help him. He raised a foot and tried to sweep her feet out from under her. Tried was the operative word. Even with Angel latched onto her, she leapt over his kick, feet lashing out in either direction, and kicked both of them in the balls. Each staggered back, away from the other, Angel losing his grip.  
"Call me the Maiden of the Mirthless Smile," she snarled at Angel, "if you're fortunate enough to walk away. Which you won't be." Her sword came around again.  
Rupert bloody Giles tackled her about the ankles, sending her to her knees.  
Well, he'd always known Giles was more than he seemed at first glance. Man'd gone one on one with Angelus armed with a flaming baseball bat, done more than a little damage, and lived to tell the tale. Trouble was, he hadn't _won_ , only survived, and it was starting to look as if this Maiden outclassed even Angelus.  
She thrust herself upward, using her sword as a prop, and slashed at the fool in glasses. Good thing for him Spike wasn't ready to let him die. He hurtled forward and rolled, taking the blow to his legs and spinning Giles out of danger. Now he just had to get back up and...  
...fall on his face. She'd hamstrung him without even trying.  
The Maiden brought her sword down at his neck again. He could feel the air part around it. Yet somehow it never connected. He shoved himself over to see what had happened.  
She was floating in mid-air, kicking furiously. Willow and Tara stepped in closer, clutching each others' hands with a look of concentration in their eyes--though Tara spared him a compassionate glance. Right generous of her.  
"No worries," Willow said. "She can't get out of this."  
Tara was not so confident. "Watch her hands. She might have throwing weapons or something." Smarter than Willow sometimes. Hadn't the redhead gotten it through her head yet: the Exalted could do the impossible?  
A spray of blood burst from the Maiden's back, followed by barbed, lashing rusty chains. Damn him, when was he going to stop tempting fate? A chain lunged at Willow, slicing her arm open, and the witches toppled backwards as Tara yanked her away. Another chain knocked Wesley's gun from his hand as he leveled it at her.  
Gunn rushed the Maiden, along with four Dune People. Smart. Just because she had--how many chains was that? Seven?--all those chains didn't mean she could use each of them individually. Two of the Dune People were slashed across the chest, but the other two and Gunn slammed into the Maiden as she dropped, and all of them went down in a tangle of limbs.  
It didn't last. Chains ripped across them; another of the Dune People fell. Gunn and the last unhurt albino managed to crawl away, for the moment, as the Maiden sprang to her feet. Come to think of it, he'd tried to hurt her a couple of times already and his chip hadn't fired once. What was she? He tried to clamber to his feet again, but his cut tendons refused to obey. Tara grabbed him and began to drag him away from the fight. "Thanks," he muttered irritably.  
A gun went off. Cordelia had gotten Wes's gun--good on her--but the bullets spanged off the Maiden's chains until the weapon was empty. Not so good, Cordy. She could have hit anyone and she'd done no damage at all. How the bloody blazes were they going to stop this little brat before she murdered them all? Cordy flung the gun aside.  
"She's bloody going to kill us all," Giles murmured into his ear. "I don't suppose you have any ideas?"  
Spike shook his head. "I've got nothing. I think she must've already got--"  
Anya prodded the back of the Maiden's neck with Wesley's gun. "Dodge this."  
"What's the matter with her?" Giles shook his head in disbelief. "The pistol's--"  
Spike saw it immediately. "The Maiden doesn't know that. Took balls, though." He also saw the Maiden smile. "Damn it!"  
"All right," said the Maiden, wearing her trademarked grin. And she spun.  
Anya dropped the gun and seized a chain, the one highest on the Maiden's spine. Blood spurted from her hands and wrists, but she hung on as the Maiden's movements wrapped the chain around her own neck. Ignoring what must have been agony, Anya wrenched at the chain as it tried to twist free of her grip, and with one swift motion, knotted it tight. The Maiden's eyes bulged in disbelief and probably lack of air. If she needed air; Spike wasn't too sure.  
Perhaps the Maiden might have broken free in another few moments, but Angel seized her, and with only the faintest hint of regret in his eyes, buried his fangs in her neck. Well, her shoulder, anyway. Huh. There was fight in the old man yet. He wasn't smart enough to kill her, though; the chains burst into a spray of gore as she collapsed, and once they did, Spike could see her start to breathe again. Maybe Spike would rectify that once everyone was distracted. If he could get up, that was.  
Everyone stared at Anya for a few moments. Nothing happened, and Anya rubbed at her forehead, spreading blood across it. No symbol burst to life there. No glow appeared around her.  
"Dammit," Anya said, and collapsed, blood gushing into the dry sand.  
*****  
"You're sure they're not upset that I ran for it in the Lap?"  
Sulumor released an exasperated groan. "We've been over this, Buffy. You were set upon by six Dragon-Blooded at once. Xander is new to his powers and Fred had only just Exalted. Running was the correct thing to do. If anything, it speaks to your combat prowess that you fought as long and injured as many as you did. The only valid complaint anyone could have is that your actions were too overt, and everything I heard suggests Solars, not we mythical Infernals, were blamed for the blaze. If anyone suggests you should have stood and fought, laugh in their faces."  
Buffy was watching Sulumor, not the path ahead, and suddenly Sulumor reached out and pulled her to a stop. Buffy turned and found her nose about three inches from a massive blocky wall of tarnished brass, no more than three or four stories high. "I'd say we're here." A vast crack in the wall waited a couple of feet to her left. "Okay, maybe that was my fault." She sidled over to the crack. "I'm guessing there are no official gates."  
"No," Sulumor said wryly. "You guess correctly."  
Buffy drew herself up. "I've been here before. Nothing to worry about." Sulumor gave her a _look_ , and they strode through the gap together.  
A vast towered cityscape rose in front of her, gleaming under the searing light of the green sun. Towers of shining brass, glinting yellow, topped in sky-piercing spires; squat towers of black stone, blocky and brooding. She had seen this before. No, wait, she was thinking of Coruscant; there were no speeders arcing from tower to tower here, though winged demons could be seen in a few spots. She _had_ seen this before, though. _Welcome back to hell, Buffy. You don't really belong here. I promise._ She glanced over her shoulder; the gap in the wall was still there, but the top was no longer a couple of stories above. It rose up behind her, thousands and thousands of feet in the air.  
When she looked back, a presence waited in the shadows, a figure that beckoned her, drew her forward. It wore silken robes draped over a lush feminine form, though of the face she could see only a pair of shining silver eyes. Unexpected warmth rose up inside her, tugging her toward the woman in the shadows. Sulumor grabbed Buffy by the shirt, hissing, "Stop."  
"You have nothing to fear," came a voice, husky, velvet. "Welcome, Peers of Malfeas. Welcome, Buffy, favored of the Yozis. I wish to speak to you especially. And welcome, Sulumor. My thanks for bringing her. You also have done well. If you would introduce us?"  
Sulumor shuddered visibly. "Buffy, this is Erembour, That Which Calls to the Shadows, Seventh Soul of the Ebon Dragon. She is one of the most dangerous beings in this realm, so be respectful, but remember your own place." Her bow was fairly deep, but not servile. "The law holds you as much as anyone else, but not even the Unquestionable may lay their hands on you."  
Buffy grimaced, but made her own bow, not quite so deep. How far was she expected to "be respectful" to a thing like this? "Um...hello, Erembour. Nice to meet you." As if it wasn't bad enough bowing to a demon, the stupid thing was still turning her on. She pressed her legs together, which had the useful effect of not letting her step closer but was otherwise no good.  
Sulumor leaned over to whisper in her ear. "You might survive a blow from her, perhaps even ten, but you could not outfight her, and in any case that is not the danger she poses. She would shape you into a beast of darkness before you could land a punch. Also, you will grow used to her...attraction, up to a point. It is simply what she is. I have seen many without the slightest interest in women succumb to her charms."  
Buffy glanced at the demon, who seemed expectant, content to wait, and not the least offended. There was no sign of a mouth beneath the shadows of her hair, no face but those eyes, yet somehow Buffy seemed to see her smile. "Thank you for spreading my fame, Sulumor. You may go now. Take care of any immediate business you may have, but you are then wanted in the Conventicle." Sulumor bowed again and hurried away.  
"Buffy," the demon said warmly. Why were all these...these _things_ so friendly? "I was quite impressed that you disrupted the Lap, but more so that you managed to get away afterwards, and hid yourself so well. Also, you made quite a handsome fellow. Are you sure we can't see more of him?"  
To her surprise, she found herself nodding. "He might turn up next time I need to hide," she said, flushing bright red.  
"You really must learn to loosen up," Erembour purred. "Other than that, you do so well, but you need to let go of those...inhibitions. Perhaps I should sound my horn after all." She rubbed her chin. She was a she, wasn't she? Even her form seemed to shift under all that darkness. "No, we need you for other things. Alas. But we will free you in the end, never fear. That was my first purpose, to congratulate you."  
"And second?"  
"To inform you that Alveua would see you. I do not bring you this as a simple message. You are required to arm yourself appropriately. Our arsenals are vast, but Alveua is one of our best crafters, who expresses my creativity. Thirdly: you are summoned to the Conventicle as well. The time of your introduction is at hand. The Infernal Thing begins in one hour. Be on time. Now go get yourself...appropriately dressed. Your brass armor would do nicely."  
That might be interesting. It _was_ appropriately shiny. God, what was she thinking? Her face turned even redder, and she bowed, then scurried away. They were trying to break her inhibitions. That was all. That was all it was.  
Right?  
*****  
Her townhouse was full of neomah. "Um. Hello. Excuse me. I haven't been moved out, have I?"  
One of the nubile lavender demons sidled up to her, trying to bounce a bit, trying to be seductive--neomah were always seductive--but mostly she just quivered with fear. Normally Buffy liked seeing demons who were afraid of her. These made her feel like she was expected to give them black eyes and then instruct them to say they walked into a doorknob. "We are here to serve as members of your retinue, Buffy Summers. We have cleaned and decorated your townhouse and procured clothing suitable to your station. We also stand ready to fulfill any more personal needs you might have."  
Buffy took a deep breath. "Look, I don't know what's been going on here lately, but the fact is I've only ever so much as kissed one girl, and she tried to kill me later. I'm not saying there's absolutely no chance but I'm not sure you realize that you're not my usual--"  
The neomah who had spoken to her began to grow, its body thickening with muscle. "You generally prefer a lover with a penis, then? Or is something more exotic required?"  
"Ahhhh..." Buffy swallowed hard and shook her head. "Maybe later. I've got to be at a Thing in less than an hour now. If I have time afterwards...." She'd had a demon lover before. It wasn't so bad...what was she thinking? She and Angel had had sex exactly once and then he'd turned evil.  
"Let us accompany you," said the one who'd turned male, smiling. "You deserve a proper escort."  
"Let us help you get dressed," simpered another. "Please allow us to serve you."  
That did it. They really were just looking to be of service. The Demon City was far more of a hell dimension than Creation was, however rough the latter had become. They were probably afraid she'd have them executed for displeasing her. "All right, help me get dressed and you can come along. I'll...ah...take the other thing under advisement."  
She really _hadn't_ had any in a couple of months now. Maybe it would be all right, just once.  
*****  
Green light pierced the center of the dome and was refracted by sparkling geometric shapes of crystal and brass. Jet black seats whose legs and backs felt like bone ringed a central arena full of sand, and all manner of monstrosities sat in them. Nominally the front seats were the place of honor for the assembled Green Sun Princes, though Buffy had already realized it let the demons keep an eye on them. And at the center a platform she had seen rise into the air on tentacular supports held a single podium. Buffy had attempted to make for the ring of seats, but her retinue of neomah had whimpered and pleaded until she followed their direction. She was standing behind the podium now. She was in the place of honor. In hell. Something from college flickered through her memory about Lucifer's "safe unenvied throne".  
With a flick of her finger and a reluctant sigh, she rose into the air, into the shimmering green light. "Assembled lords and ladies, gathered peers of hell," proclaimed the auburn-haired young man in the emerald robes, the young man who at this moment was also the source of the searing green rays that pierced the dome, "I give to you the unexpected. We do not know her incarnations. We do not know her home. And yet she has been proclaimed ahead of time for us by He Who Sees All Things, Dread Sacheverell. She is the beginning of great change, the first of what we hope may be many, the fifty- _first_ Peer of Malfeas. I give to you the Green Sun Princess Buffy Summers! Buffy Summers the Slayer!"  
The demons in attendance leapt to their feet, those who had feet, and roared out their approval. All thirty-six of the Infernals in attendance leapt up a moment later. Buffy spotted Erembour easily, Sulumor a moment later. Of Cyan there was no sign, but she couldn't spend all her time here, after all. There was Captain Gyrfalcon, whose ship had stopped her from plummeting to her death. She thought. For all she knew, maybe she'd have survived the fall anyway.  
"BOOOO!!" The heck? Buffy rotated the platform until she could see her heckler. A Prince she didn't recognize, a war-painted young brute of a man with a shock of light red hair. "This? You call this little bit of a girl a Slayer? Whose idea was this miserable slip of a thing? What use is she?"  
Ligier turned a searing green gaze on the man. "Cearr, you are out of order. I have just begun introductions. Should you wish to challenge her, you may do so in a moment. Should you wish to challenge _me_ , I invite you to come forward now."  
Cearr paled visibly and clapped a hand over his mouth, shaking his head, but fury still filled his eyes.  
"Though she has only just begun her work among us," Ligier went on, "Buffy has made waves already by destabilizing the Lap. A substantial portion of this year's grain harvest is ruined, but more importantly a wave of slave revolts and uprisings by the indentured has begun. Some may argue that this is meager gain, compared to (for instance) seizing the Penitent. They do not understand how any further destabilization of the Realm benefits our cause.  
"Now, however, it is time for Buffy to begin a new phase of her labors. We have one-on-one combatants in plenty. We will need warriors, certainly, warriors who can match Dawn and Dusk Exalts in battle. Right now, however, our greater need is for _generals_ , and too many of our Slayers have avoided this task thus far. It is time we remedied that situation.  
"Buffy Summers will rest here in Malfeas for another two weeks, during which time we expect her to properly arm herself and to continue her training. At the end of that time, she will proceed to Gem, where she is to take control of the cult of Malfeas and command of an elite force of akuma. It will then be her choice what she does with them, so long as Gem is either destroyed or delivered into our hands."  
His emerald gaze shone on Buffy. "Because this is your first command assignment, victory is not absolutely required of you. It is, however, expected. This is your chance to gather any assistance you think you might need."  
The conquest or destruction of an entire city-state. On her. Gem was no place to live, if she remembered right, unless you were either filthy rich or dead lucky, but it didn't deserve to be conquered by hell. "Um. Okay. Here's the sitch. I have never led more than a little band of my friends in a fight. I'll do my best, but I need someone to teach me. Have _any_ Green Sun Princes ever led an army?"  
The assembled Infernals looked at one another. "Dark Iolite says he led a Haltan army against Lookshy a few years back, but he's off planning an insurgency in the Bordermarches right now."  
"There's V'neef Tereso. Didn't he used to be in the Realm army?"  
"Expelled for cowardice just before he Exalted, no really great skills. Also, I think a Deathknight offed him last week in Thorns."  
"Isn't there a Malefactor who was a general off in Gethamane or someplace?"  
"You're thinking of that Earth Person Der Ne-Thel-Xen. She tried to lead a Jadeborn revolt that hung up on some mystic Solar curse. Their leaders put them all down. She's not confirmed dead, but no one knows where she is."  
"Gyrfalcon's got his pirate crew. Still, my _lady_ Summers, the only real general among us you're likely to still find alive," Cearr snarled, "is me."  
*****  
"You beat me," Cearr had said, "I teach you everything you wanna know. I beat you...I go with you to Gem and you be my flunky. Yeah, yeah, Unquestionables an' all that. You can say you're in charge and they won't make a fuss."  
There was really only one response Buffy could make to that kind of arrogance. "You're on." She just hoped he wasn't as tough as he seemed to think he was. Or, anyway, that she was tougher.  
Now Sulumor was coaching her a little. "You don't actually need him." At least, Buffy thought that was what she was doing.  
"Why not?"  
"You really don't know? Has there ever been a weapon you've put your hands on that you couldn't swing or fire within a few seconds, and be an expert at in a matter of days, if that?" Sulumor gave her a stare of utter bafflement.  
Buffy almost said _Guns_ before remembering a certain incident with a rocket launcher. She might never have tried to use a pistol or a shotgun, but a weapon's vintage or level of technology was plainly not a factor.  
"I suppose I see how you wouldn't know. You'll be an old hand at tactics and strategy within the week. You're a Slayer. It's your birthright."  
"Well, I still have to get started somewhere. Besides, he's determined to call me out. I have to show him I can kick his butt if I'm going to keep the level of respect I have."  
"True enough. Cearr hasn't precisely neglected his defenses, Buffy, but he does favor offense. Either hold him off and wear him down, or strike hard before he can strike you first. Don't try to match him blow for blow."  
"That it?" That wasn't bad advice, but it was kinda limited.  
"He knows a number of offensive Malfean charms you don't. He has several enhancements to Green Sun Nimbus Flare, which is nasty all by itself."  
"Think Cyan used it. Green energy in the wounds?" That had been ugly, especially in that Shadowfire combo thing, but it hadn't stopped her.  
"Yes. Also, he knows a fair amount of Infernal Monster style. It comes naturally to all Green Sun Princes if we choose to learn it, but it does take practice. He will come at you like a wounded dragon if you're careless. He's ready. Get back out there in the center."  
Cearr waited there, stalking back and forth and showing off his big scary muscles and giant axe. She was really going to have to get herself some kind of a weapon; hand-to-hand was all well and good, but this thing gave him an edge, no pun intended. Just about every warrior around here seemed to have a giant sword or something. Was there a kind of axe called a glaive? Would that make this thing a daiglaive? No, wait, a glaive was a polearm.  
"Come on, then," she called, stepping into the ring. "Come and get me. If you can." He probably could. **Viridian Legend Exoskeleton.**  
Sulumor was right, it seemed. When Cearr closed his eyes, she knew exactly, on some instinctive level, what he was doing. **Infernal Monster Form.** And the barbarian swelled up like a vampire on insta-steroids. Muscles sprouted from his muscles. His legs, his entire body, stretched upward, reaching for the ceiling's dome. In short, the guy she was about to have to kick the ass off Hulked out.  
She was so going to have to learn to do that. Even if it made her look like she was on steroids temporarily. Still, she was the one with the shiny armor. She lunged out into the arena. **Wind-Born Stride**.  
He matched her pace. Surpassed it. **Raging Behemoth Charge**. Cearr swung that gigantic axe, and she leapt into the air. Her feet touched the tilted blade, the handle. The left one collided with his face. First blood to her. Shame it was going to take more than that to beat him. Still, blood flew from his nose.  
Her feet touched the ground just in time to see his elbow come back at her and crush her into the sand. **God-Smashing Blow.** Cearr skidded in the sand, coming around while she picked herself up. She put a hand to her mouth. No blood, not that she could see. The metal over her lip seemed dented, though. The axe came down. Her hands went up. The monstrous thing dwarfed Tepet Lisara's sword.  
Buffy slammed her hands together and caught the blow between them. A gasp from the crowd would've been nice. Nothing. Well, a few scattered claps. She heaved upward, forcing the axe away from her. It seemed they'd seen it all before. That wasn't the important part anyway. She slammed her toes into his groin.  
Cearr grunted. No sell. "You've got to be kidding me," Buffy grumbled. Every guy she'd ever met would kill for _that_ superpower. She was going to have to pull off something spectacular to get a rise out of this crowd.  
Then she realized someone _was_ cheering for her. Not with the raucous laughter she expected from Cearr's type, not with the sneers and amused clapping she thought Cyan might demonstrate if she were here. They were quiet about it, trying to be unobtrusive, but she could see her demon entourage, hands clasped and raised, murmuring their approval every time she landed a blow.  
Maybe it would work. She needed a few moments out of his reach. Buffy took a running jump, hurtling up onto the raised podium. Not an ideal spot; they could all see her. But if she was quick, and clever, and the power worked the way she hoped it did, it wouldn't matter for more than a few moments. Keep moving. **Death-Dealing Journey.** As Cearr scrambled up the tentacles that held the thing in the air, Buffy focused, and her shadow rose from the ground, covering her in darkness. A pair of seconds. Cearr swung himself over the rail as it melted back off her, leaving her conspicuous as all hell.  
Buffy leapt up, caught the railing with her hands, and vaulted over, landing on the edge of the arena, in the middle of her gaggle of neomah attendants. From whom she was now indistinguishable. They weren't stupid, whatever some people might think; each of them watched Cearr and ignored her, wearing various poses of nonchalance. A slouch here, a stretch there.  
Cearr had seen her. He knew she was disguised as one of the demons. But neomah, it seemed, were all but identical. They had some small differences in features, made others with piercings, but Cearr didn't seem the type to pay those any mind, especially not when they were someone else's entourage. She'd wait till he was busy inspecting them, then strike before he figured out which one she was. His mouth twisting in a sneer, he stomped over toward the group of demons. "Scared, I see. Going to hide. How clever, little girl. How appropriate. Don't think this will protect you from me in the slightest."  
He reached out and seized one of them. Shook her like a rag doll. He clasped her head in one mighty hand. And twisted. The Infernals yawned. Several of the greater demons joined them, or failed to react even that far. Only the rest of the neomah gasped.  
Maybe it was just that the rest of them were next, but that look of shock and terror.... _God, what did I just do?_ She'd put them in harm's way, and now they were being slaughtered. No, they were just demons. They were....  
NO. She'd brought them here. They were her responsibility. They were about to die. For her. For her momentary disguise.  
Cearr hadn't even had a moment to react when she slammed into his gut. With a grunt, she lifted, and he rose from the ground easily despite his immense bulk. She slammed him down into the sand, lifted again, and hurled him forward into the tentacled base of the podium. At once he began to rise, and she dashed forward, leapt over him, somersaulting over the rail. Still inverted in the air, she grabbed the controls. Down. Cearr was on the move, hurling himself forward at incredible speed. Almost fast enough.  
The platform crashed down onto his right foot, pinning him. It wouldn't last long, but she didn't need long. **Self As Cyclone Stance**  
"Pick!" Heels to back. "On!" Fist to side of jaw. "Someone!" Other fist to nose. "Your!" Kick to gut, as he struggled up. "Own!" Fists to his shoulders, slamming him back down. "Size!" Buffy seized him by the head and wrenched with all her might.  
There was a sudden **crack!** , astonishing in its abrupt finality. _This_ time the assembly gasped. Cearr slumped forward. Buffy seized hold of him, cradling his head and neck, wrapping both arms around him. "Hey! If I'm not allowed to kill this guy, someone get the hell down here!"  
Cearr's eyes bulged with terror. He hadn't reacted this way even to Ligier. Well, Ligier had only threatened him; the demon prince hadn't actually _broken his neck_. Assuming the big guy lived, he'd be fine eventually; that had been one of the first things Cyan had explained. But right now he was utterly helpless. Just letting him fall might kill him. Only might, of course; he was still Exalted.  
The Orchid-Consuming Guardian strolled down from his seat and stepped up onto the platform, which obligingly released Cearr's foot and rose another three yards or so. "First maiming wound to Buffy Summers. Please be more careful in the future, Miss Summers; you have quite exceeded the victory parameters. Medical assistance to the arena, please. We need to immobilize Cearr's neck." A pair of insectile demons emerged from the shadows. Sesseljae, Buffy thought they were called. She let them take Cearr from her. Cheers, mixed with some snickering, rose from the seated demons and Exalts. "Cearr, you are obligated to tutor Buffy on tactics and strategy as soon as it becomes possible for you." Maybe he would respect her now, but she thought it was more likely he would hold a grudge. He seemed like the type. Buffy could've sworn the Guardian could have healed him at once, but there was quiet satisfaction in the Seneschal's eyes at Cearr's defeat. "One more thing. Buffy, you may certainly wear any guise you like, but your current appearance seems to be a source of amusement."  
She looked down at herself. "Oh come on." She had kicked Cearr's butt while looking like a neomah. Buffy started to release the disguise, but suddenly her retinue surrounded her and lifted her into the air, rubbing her shoulders and slapping her on the back. She didn't deserve their attention; she'd gotten one of them killed. But... "I think I'll keep this look for a bit," she said. "Mind if I go?"  
The Guardian made a gesture of dismissal. "I believe we have no further business here for the moment. Your parade awaits you outside the Conventicle." Parade? Oh. Right. She had just been formally announced as a Peer of Hell, and now they were going to march her through the Demon City. The Infernals rose from their seats first, surrounding her, with the Orchid-Eater at their head. The remaining greater demons followed, though again Buffy suspected it had nothing to do with respect and everything to do with keeping an eye on their superweapons. They wound through the Conventicle, gathering lesser demons as they went. Many cheered, banging on improvised drums, singing, or playing various instruments. Still, though, she wondered about even those who seemed sincere. Did they really expect to escape? Hope their lives would be better? Or were they just being herded along by their supposed betters?  
Was it a good thing she had never thought of this in her own world? Or was it a fault in her own soul? Her neomah bore her through the gates of the Conventicle, and only there, as they set her atop a palanquin borne by blood apes, did she drop the illusion and revert to her own face. The erymanthoi roared, the neomah danced along in front of her, and demons gathered to throng the streets. And they cheered. The demons cheered for the Slayer.  
It made her head hurt.  
*****  
Buffy came to slowly, groggily, with the tiniest twinge of a hangover, and surrounded by pillows and fluffy blankets. Disturbing dreams echoed in her head, just as they had for years. Collapsing brass walls. Fire and hail and brimstone. Erymanthoi capering in the streets of Los Angeles. Nothing that seemed too likely. Prophecy was prophecy, though, and it suddenly occurred to her that no one had said _when_ she would free the Yozis. Or _where_ they'd be released to.  
She rolled over and found herself face to face with a dozing, naked neomah. Shit! Just how drunk had she gotten? Buffy flipped herself back over to face the other way. There was a neomah there, too, and this one was inverted. Shorter than her, it lay facing her belly button. She sat bolt upright, stifling a cry. Geez, how exactly had she spent the night? Maybe nothing had happened; nude neomah were scattered all over the bed in various positions that might just have been where they lay down to sleep. Of course, alternatively....  
That didn't bear thinking about. Buffy clambered out of bed, trying not to wake anyone, and began hunting down some clothes. Something practical, since there was no formal occasion. Stylish in the demon city usually involved other things she preferred not to consider.  
"Going out without us, mistress?" The neomah she'd found herself facing was also climbing off the bed. "Surely you wish some sort of entourage, unless you need to travel in secret. Though I will fetch you anyone you wish. Angyalkae, perhaps?" Those were the ones with the harp fingers, right?  
Buffy sighed. "Get your friends dressed and we'll go out together." Sooner or later she was going to have to get some other demons to go with her, but right now she couldn't summon the effort, and it wasn't as if anyone here was going to look down at her for whatever she was doing with the neomah. As far as they were concerned, that was what neomah were for. She hesitated a moment. "Did we...do anything last night?" The neomah opened her mouth. She was going to have to find names for them. "Never mind. I don't think I want to know."  
The neomah snickered. "As you wish, mistress."  
*****  
Aphrodisia was smarter than she looked. She gave Buffy fashion advice, pointing out some shimmering green-and-deep-red clothes that were currently in style without being too repulsive to human sensibilities, then helped pick out names for the others, which seemed to startle her. Apparently, the lowly First Circle demons didn't generally have names of their own. At most, they might be called "Boss" or something related to the patterns on their hair or skin. Buffy gave her brain a workout thinking of names that had nothing to do with the piercings these neomah wore. Maybe it was foolish--the illusion that these demons were her friends was risky to invite--but she couldn't bring herself to regard them as her toys or slaves, especially not after what Cearr had done. And friends or not, they certainly seemed to think of themselves as hers. Disturbing, but if they really believed that, they'd be loyal. More or less.  
Marzi was a chatterbox, rattling on and on about what Buffy thought at first was a soap opera, but eventually it proved to be local politics. Apparently she'd been a direct servant of Octavian before being reassigned to Buffy, and was extremely relieved to be away from him. Larimar had worked on Ipithymia, who was both a Third-Circle and a street full of brothels, and she too seemed to have the dirt on everyone, but was much more careful about it. Quiet, cringing Spinel, by contrast, had been a temporary consort and librarian of Orabilis, and apparently had a great deal of technical knowledge that was likely to get her killed one day. Strangest of all, Dharma had been some kind of traveling monk, climbing the infinite slopes of a Yozi mountain called Qaf. Buffy began to wonder if their assignments were really random, or if they had been chosen to lend their expertise. And how many of the Green Sun Princes actually listened to their servants.  
There were more, but she decided these were enough to take along on her trip to Alveua's forge. Buffy decided to disguise herself as one of them again, and took the whole group on some kind of bizarre blimp thing, showing a passcard that identified them as moving on her orders. Traveling incognito could be dangerous, but she could always reveal herself on the instant, and she didn't want to have to listen to awed gasps and terrified screaming everywhere she went. It would have worked a great deal better if the blimp hadn't begun screaming in pain instead; it seemed to float on the shieks instead of on hot air.  
Finally the blimp deposited them on a filigreed brass causeway between two basalt pyramids, and Buffy was able to remove her hands from her ears. "Um, girls--which building is it?" Spinel shook her head and walked five steps, then turned to her left and pointed. Frowning, Buffy strolled over to her. She came abreast of the neomah and a massive, iron-bound door flickered into being. "Nice camoflauge system she's got here." Buffy dropped her disguise and started to knock, but Spinel shook her head again.  
"She's expecting you," Dharma said. "And even if she weren't, you have the right to enter any building in Malfeas without warning or permission." Buffy raised her eyebrows and lifted the latch.  
"Hey! Excuse y--" Alveua shouted through the furnace smoke. The Forge was the first place Buffy had been in that actually resembled hell, though all the molten metal was safely confined. Sweat soaked through her shirt almost instantly. "Um, I mean, welcome to my humble shop, Buffy Summers. I'm very sorry and I don't get a lot of customers who are allowed to _barge in_ without knocking."  
"Actually I was gonna," Buffy began sheepishly. Spinel shook her head firmly, and she started over with more force. "I'm here to take a look at your weapons and armor. Show me the good stuff."  
Alveua grinned. "Got some good advisors there, don't ya?" The demoness might've held a fairly high position, but she looked no older than Buffy; her red hair, green eyes, and waifish build might have belonged to any high school or younger college student in Sunnydale, and even the daintily-ornamented black metal dress would appeal to plenty of perky goths. Only the little red horns that peeked out of her bangs gave the lie to her looks. That said, Buffy wasn't sure even she could have carried the gigantic forge hammer that Alveua swung carelessly over her shoulder. "C'mon down to the emporium. The really good stuff is commission-only. Even for you, unless some bigwig tells me otherwise."  
"What if I were to say I wanted it?" She'd see how far she could push.  
Alveua grinned again, but this time she showed a lot more teeth. Nice, white, straight, perfectly filed teeth. "You don't seem like the type to want a weapon made of human souls, Buffy. I hear that as Green Sun Princes go, you're a real sheltered Princess. Don't worry too much about it. Either they'll beat you down or they'll beat it out of you. From what I hear, I'm thinking the latter; you _are_ tough. Now come on down before I get bored.  
"Most of this stuff is side business," the demon clarified. "I could get by just fine without it, to be honest, but I buy up the best that lesser craftsmen make, then sell it at a premium with my stamp of approval. Take a look at this, for instance." The crystalline blade in the case at the bottom of the stairwell didn't seem high-quality tp Buffy's eye, and she said so. It was jagged and off-center. "She Who Lives In Her Name loves order," Alveua explained, "but you can't remake it once it's broken. Not too smart the way I see it, but what can you do? These things are sharp and fast, and they cut into your soul, slice out what you care about, and burn out the emotion. Sometimes I think mortals'd be better off if we made surgical scalpels out of those things instead."   
Buffy tried not to betray what she felt about that, pausing instead in front of a gold bowl that seemed full of crude oil. "What's this stuff?"  
"Oooh. Good taste, Summers. That is a compliant umbral panoply. Go ahead, attune it and give it a test drive. Those things are expensive, but the way things are going you'll get it basically free."  
Buffy dipped her hand into the oil, expecting to find something like a puddle of french fry grease. The stuff might as well have been an illusion; her fingers passed through without resistance or sensation. She closed her eyes and let power flow into the goop. Nothing seemed to happen, so she peeked. The oil had vanished. "Hey, what--?"  
"Look at your shadow," said Aphrodisia.  
Buffy frowned, studying it, and it writhed away from her stare. Her shadow shifted, flickered, and changed. She framed a thought, and the shadow loomed up and onto the wall, forming into a question mark.  
"You can make it tangible," Aphrodisia explained. "Make weapons from it, wear it like armor, even ride it."  
Tempting. Wait a sec. Buffy pulled the shadow up over her, turning it jet black save for white patches around the eyes, and on her chest, a great white spider. "I'm going to eat your BRAAINS!" Her entire entourage squealed in terror and scurried behind the display cases. Alveua's eyes widened and she swung her hammer into a ready position. "Er. Not such a great idea. Sorry. It was a joke. Honest." She released the panoply into the bowl and held up her empty hands. "I swear. Girls, I promise I can explain."  
Aphrodisia peered out from behind a long case. "You'd better, or I'm going to go beg to work for Munaxes."  
Buffy stepped over to her. "It's a long...hey, what's that?" The display case held a rust-red spear with a sharp wooden point retipped with metal. The other end of it bore a wicked axe blade. "It...that thing looks familiar somehow." Aphrodisia emerged, moving very gingerly.  
"I'd say it was probably yours in a past life," Alveua said, pursing her lips, "except you can't ever have seen it before. Made it this week while you were en route."  
"Maybe the design is similar," Aphrodisia said, still fidgeting. Clearly she wanted that explanation. The other neomah still weren't showing more than their eyes around the cases.  
"Maybe I saw it in a dream," Buffy said faintly. "Is it...it's kind of...scythe-like."  
Alveua rolled her eyes. "Scythe-like? What would you reap with that little blade? This is called a daikalbar. Truthfully, it's kinda small. I was gonna sell it to a Djala akuma, but she died in a fight with some Lunars before she could pick it up. If you want the thing, it's yours."  
*****  
"...so anyway, Venom kept going back and forth between supervillain and anti-hero for a long long time, mostly because consumer demand won't actually let Marvel Comics get its act together."  
"Why not?" Aphrodisia expressed the puzzlement of the entire group.  
"I told you humans were incomprehensible," Spinel whispered to Marzi, who shook her head helplessly.  
"Well, um...I guess stories need an end somewhere, even if it's only 'he rode off into the distance', and people don't want popular characters to have an end." Buffy fingered the weapon she'd decided to call the Scythe, just to spite Alveua. There was a odd tension building in her head and between her shoulderblades that she'd last felt just before she and Angel broke it off for the final time. She wanted...no, she needed...to kill some demons. She was surrounded by them, and she was supposed to leave them alone. It was their world. Demons belonged in hell.  
"I guess that makes sense," Marzi said. "I hate it when good times end." She didn't want to hurt Marzi. Or any of the girls. They hadn't done anything to her. She didn't think, anyway. Only, part of her kinda did. Her hands twitched on the Scythe. It felt familiar somehow, even though that was impossible.  
They'd been standing here trying to hail a blimp for what seemed like hours, though by her watch it'd only been about thirty minutes. Unfortunately, the girls said time shifted in the demon city, so how long it had really been was a mystery.  
"We should stop wasting time and take the ummuhan," Larimar suggested. Or rather, she stated it bluntly to Spinel. That was her way of avoiding confrontation with Buffy, it seemed. Buffy wished she would just speak out so Buffy could be annoyed with her. Then she could...no. Why was she reacting this way? Also, what was an ummuhan?  
"I don't really want to take the ummuhan," Dharma grumbled. "It stinks. Buffy can get us where we're going by a better route." Because why would--? She would do it for herself, if nothing else. _Stop it!_ Someone tugged on her blouse.  
Buffy spun toward it, Scythe raised. The arm withdrew, though not so quickly she couldn't perceive how insectile the jointed limb was. Dozens more protruded from a thick greenish mist. "Slayer, may I please speak with you? We require your assistance nearby."  
"You're speaking already," Buffy said sharply, making it recoil.  
"A thousand pardons, Slayer. We only wish to ask that you witness our battle with a nearby tribe. The metody continually seek to intrude on our territory. We would have your witness and word that it remains ours."  
Dharma touched her cautiously on the arm. With an effort, she kept herself from snapping at it. Why had she given them names, anyway? "Slayer, it is your right as Chosen of Malfeas to witness such battles. Even to join in them, as you might do well to do. It would allow you to practice your tactical skills."  
Buffy studied the creature. Most of its limbs ended not in hands, but in blades or spikes. Plainly it was made to fight. "All right. You're on. I'll help you out with these...melodies?"  
"Metody," Aphrodisia said nervously. "Elementals of vitriol, the transcendent acid. Buffy, are you certain you can--?"  
"I'll figure it out," Buffy snapped at it. "Don't get in my way." She needed...she needed a challenging fight. _What, Cearr wasn't challenging enough? You beat him fast because you had to, not because he was a pushover._ She'd give into the urge to kill some demons, and that should make her feel better.  
*****  
The battle-bugs lived in a district of small blocky buildings, ruled by a slightly older boss tomescu--no one special, really. Directly next door, the metody occupied a great spiny brass spire. Dozens of tower-thorns stuck out with no obvious means of support, and indeed there might not be any, here. Malfeas laughed at puny things like gravity.  
The territorial battle was very formal, at least this time. The metody came out and set up in a battle line a dozen demons long. Fortunately there weren't actually that many of them--maybe a dozen against forty tomescu. Of course, that no doubt meant they were more powerful. "We reject your claim unless you can prove it in battle," Buffy pronounced, and the metody made incomprehensible gurgling noises in their throats. Then they charged.  
Buffy set herself to meet that charge, lifting the Scythe, but the metody just ignored it. It pierced through the creature's translucent jellylike body, not doing it any obvious harm, and the metody kept going, abruptly melting to surge up around Buffy herself.  
She was caught in a bubble of gelatinous acid. Holding her breath, she tried to struggle free, but the metody moved with her. Her clothes were already being eaten away--again--but, aside from threatening to suffocate her, the caustic fluid did no more than redden her skin a little. The Scythe swung back and forth, slicing but failing to cut her free.  
_Okay, change of tactics._ She drove the Scythe downward into the pavement. The metody wanted to keep moving forward; Buffy hauled backward on the Scythe. There was a loud pop like a giant bubble of ooze bursting, and she was free. And naked. Again. She coated herself in brass, wondering how much of an improvement it was. You could still see everything, and hadn't Willow said metals were more vulnerable to acid anyway?  
She still needed a way to fight these things. Turning the Scythe sideways, she slapped at the demon she'd just escaped. The flat of the blade splattered it, flinging acid away from her. "Guys! Use your sledges! Put the blades away, they're useless!" Fortunately, everyone on her side had at least a club in their arsenal. They howled and snarled at the impact--the vitriol hurt them more than it did her--but they kept bashing. Great globs of the stuff flew in all directions. She was going to have to learn that green fire thing. Or maybe the shadow thing that Cyan had combined it with; fire might not hurt these jelly-demons.  
Naturally it seemed she'd armed herself with the worst possible weapon for fighting these things. The next metody that came in her direction had its arms sliced off, but it promptly sprouted new ones from its sides. Maybe she'd hurt it, but it was hard to...wait. The arms lay there and melted. So it wasn't simply invulnerable to being cut. She spun the Scythe like a cheerleader's baton and laid into the thing with the blade. Gobbets of gel-acid flew everywhere. She'd misled the tomescu, though she hadn't meant to. Anyway, it wasn't quite so easy to slice off bits of the creature fast enough to do it real harm instead of just burying your weapon in the gunk, so she hadn't been completely wrong.  
A giant mallet nearly slammed her in the back as she slipped aside. The tomescu were splattering the metody with abandon now. Five had retreated to the side, cradling their acid-burnt weapon-limbs, but only two metody remained, and one of those found itself a smear on a basalt wall a moment later. The last lunged, unexpectedly, at Aphrodisia--who spat a searing mouthful of green flame at the creature, which went up in a blaze of acrid steam.  
"I didn't know you could do that!"  
The neomah winked at her. "Next time, ask. Good generals always do."  
Buffy sighed as the tomescu began beating their weapons together in clamorous celebration. She'd utterly crushed the metody champions, and in fairness she felt good about it. Those things were dangerous.  
But the pounding, pulsing ache behind her eyes--while it had gotten no worse--was as strong as ever.  
*****  
At last Buffy passed out in her townhouse, and "Aphrodisia" was free. She appreciated the name, though she found it hard to apply such a thing to herself, but business was business. With no further orders from Buffy to constrain her, she strolled off into another room and touched a contact hidden in ornate carvings on the wall. "Reporting in. Buffy's resting again. She spent most of the day shopping for weapons, and then we fought a contingent of metody near the Shattered City. She commanded some tomescu, and the metody were defeated handily, after a brief false start."  
"Good enough. Did she show any signs of stress?"  
"Her temper is worsening, and she complains of headaches. The victory in battle didn't seem to help, though it alleviated the issues somewhat while it lasted. She destroyed the metody champions and ruined the settlement utterly."  
"You are not to step in or explain until she has undergone Torment. Are we clear on that? I must find out who designed her Urge, and only a bout of Torment will make that plain."  
Aphrodisia contained a sigh. "As her designated servant, I must explain if she asks."  
"Then obviously, you must prevent her from asking. It sounds as if Malfeas had his hands on her, but it might still be another. She must not be allowed to disrupt the Reclamation."  
"But I thought--"  
"Neomah, it is not your place to think. Do as I say."  
The neomah bowed her head. "Yes, my master."


	9. From the Depths

"Operations protocol request. This is Gathered Might of the Militat. We are encountering unexpected resistance. Please advise."

"Thousand-Faceted Nelumbo. State the nature of the resistance." Nelumbo grumbled a little under her breath. Might was being excessively laconic, as was her wont. Her Clarity profile was growing higher, as tended to happen with age.

"Primitive sailing vessels. They are proving oddly resilient for their construction. Also, they are manned by free po spirits and animated corpses." The colossus sounded offended, as well she might. In a closed system, it was necessary to recycle the dead, but to use them as automata was another matter.

Nelumbo peered at the hologlyphic images Might sent her. Might was correct; these largely-wooden vessels should have been no match for her. Some of them were even badly holed and ought to have sunk, but were remaining impossibly afloat. "Necromancy." Records of the science of undeath were sparse in Autochthonia; there was no realm of the dead there as legend said had been true in Creation. Still, there were traces.

"Undoubtedly. Nelumbo, I have an Essence flux reading from one of the rearmost vessels. The closest match is to a Soulsteel caste Exalt, but there are distinct differences." The new hologlyph showed an immense black sharp-toothed fish thrashing in foam.

Nelumbo took a moment to ponder this development. "Are you in danger of taking serious damage, Might?"

"I do not believe so. The Exalt, if that is what she is, is not reading as powerful enough to readily challenge one of my stature." Nelumbo raised an eyebrow at that.

"Beware your assumptions," she told Might after a moment. "The Exalted did not wait to maximize their power before attacking the Primordials. They did not even have the advantage of numbers, if one counts the entire demon horde. Yet they prevailed. You have barely begun to analyze this threat."

"Correct," Might said finally, sounding chastened. "I acknowledge my error. Nonetheless, I have not yet been more than scratched. I still believe the primary analysis is correct: they cannot do me serious injury unless they are hiding more powerful weapons."

"There may be an opportunity in this," Nelumbo pointed out. "We expected to have to scour the Underworld. That may prove unnecessary. Prepare to withdraw and reconfigure. Don't worry...we'll be back."

*****

"Well, captain?" Xander had spent the last few days trying his best to be part of the crew, swabbing the deck and very literally learning the ropes. Some glared at him, some ignored him, and at least a few refused to let him do anything to help. Now, though, something was up.

Captain Redfang came sliding down the mast. "I don't like what's ahead. We shouldn't be seeing Skullstone flags out here, but there's a small fleet of them in the distance. I don't like to think what they're up to."

"Zombie ships?" The captain had done his best to fill him in on the political situation out here, but there were gaps in his knowledge. Communication was fairly slow at sea. Moreover, sometimes Xander just didn't have the background for what the captain was trying to explain. For instance, supposedly this Skullstone Archipelago was claiming to be a haven for the living and the undead alike, and Xander knew for a fact that would never work. Redfang agreed with him, but said he knew a lot of people who dealt with the Archipelago on peaceful terms.

"That, and something I don't understand." Redfang rubbed his forehead thoughtfully. "A big blocky thing, not a ship so far as I could tell. It rose up out of the water and vanished into thin air."

"Through a portal?" That might come in handy. "Swirly lights of any kind?"

"I couldn't see. As far as I could tell, it just...the top of it cut off, and the part of it I could see rose up to that level and was gone. Doesn't mean it won't be back." The captain sat down on the rise in the deck. "I don't like strange things around Skullstone ships--I don't like Skullstone, period--but it'll take days to go around, and they've probably spotted us by now anyway. Our best bet might be to act friendly. Unless you think you can pull some more Solar magic out of your breeches."

Xander thought about that for a moment. "I can do that, Captain. Just be aware that a lot depends on what they can do and who's making these zombies. I'd rather not pick a fight either." Buffy would no doubt go in fighting, but he was starting to get the idea that his powers weren't even remotely the same as hers. Maybe he could develop super-strength in time, but he sure didn't have it now.

Redfang grunted. "Dealing with Skullstone, if there's a fight, you aren't going to be the one picking it. Of course, they might just be a trade mission. You never know with them."

*****

Fred sighed. It hadn't worked. What had she done wrong? Just for a moment, she thought about going ahead and hunting the cockroach--maybe her intuition was wrong--but then she'd have to eat it at the end. Luna seemed not to want this particular honor.

She unfolded herself and stood, touching the glowpanel pad. The lights came back up. There was one remaining alternative: she could go among the Dragon-Blooded as herself. That would tip off Sage of the Depths and his friends. Also, there was no reason they should see her as a friend. If they had any plans, they'd certainly do their best to hide them from her.

No, she needed a way of slipping through their quarters unseen, or at least unnoticed.

Fred unfolded her legs, rose to her feet, and walked out into the corridor. The chill blue hallway stretched out for what seemed like miles. This stretch of the hall thronged with Deep Sages, who peered curiously at her as she passed. They were like her half-squid form and yet were not. Their high-domed bulbous heads resembled those of their progenitor, and differed from her long, conical shape. More, where Fred's arms and legs formed from squid arms and tentacles, the Deep Sages retained a human-like skeletal structure and had octopus arms around their mouths. She supposed it wasn't any less biologically-sound than her own shape, considering that vertebrate limbs were completely different structures from cephalopod arms anyway.

The Deep Sages bowed, if slightly, as she passed. She wasn't on the level of their patrons, of course, but they acknowledged her both as an Exalt and as one of their own kind. The Shadow Swimmers weren't quite as deferential--or more accurately, it bothered them that they had no counterpart shark-Exalt for Swims-In-Shadow to mentor. Never mind that there weren't that many Exaltations to go around. They probably didn't know that.

Out of the main corridor and into a more elaborate side hallway, which opened out into a large antechamber. Flickering torches--a symbol of power and wealth, down here where the air had to be eternally scrubbed--marked the entrance to Throth-Shulgu's home. Fred closed her eyes momentarily and took on her half-squid form--her war-form, Sage of the Depths insisted on calling it, though she couldn't imagine it was ideal for combat. But it was a polite way of meeting with Throth-Shulgu, a very smart woman who headed Luthe's technological research department. For one thing, it let them converse in Advanced Cephalopod, as Fred thought of it. Though in all honesty, she was still learning how to speak it. The Sage had had to use a charm just to speak with her that first time. Still, the scientist always acted as if it were a great honor even to give her language lessons.

Throth-Shulgu's door slid aside, creaking slightly, and the Deep Sage bowed to her. Fred reflexively started to bow back before stopping herself; Throth-Shulgu had been mortified the first time that happened. Instead she smiled and let a pleased greeting flicker across her skin.

"It's fascinating studying your equations," Throth said. "Are you certain you really need me? I see so much familiar in them, and yet in unfamiliar forms."

"I promise I'm just a novice," Fred assured her. "I may've had some important insights, but that doesn't mean I understand all the implications. And really I learned a lot from my professors. Most of it, probably."

Throth blinked slowly. "I don't suppose any of the names Devon, Salina, or Silur mean anything to you?" At Fred's puzzled head-shake, she added, "Those were the founders of the three great schools of sorcery. There are bits and pieces of their work in the equations you drew up for me."

Fred sidled up to a seat. Throth wouldn't sit unless she did first, and the octopus-woman was getting on up in years. "Well, I mean, reality is reality. That is, any valid theory of magic would have to come from the information embedded in the world already. It's like string theory and quantum gravity. We can't resolve which is which until we figure out how to get experimental data, and since they deal with aspects of the world that are hard to get at, there's no telling when we'll find out the truth."

"How fascinating!" Throth beamed at her. Fairly literally; the cephalopod beak wasn't built for smiling. "Silur would never have said that, but it could have come from the mouths of either Devon or Salina, depending on how it was meant."

Fred swished her highest set of arms around irritably, and folded them. "The important thing is that it doesn't have to come from any of them. You can describe things in an infinite number of different ways--"

"Now Silur," Throth said softly.

"--but either they match and mesh, in which case they're frequently all true and correct, or they don't, and you can tell it by careful examination."

Throth knotted a pair of her mouth-tentacles together. "I wonder. Could it be I'm in the presence of the founder of a fourth great school? That would be beyond amazing."

Fred blushed. She could do that as easily with her squid face as her human one. "I'm only just starting, ma'am."

"Everyone starts somewhere. And the founders' work built on one another. Salina was Devon's pupil. If you succeeded in integrating them all, extracting useful principles from each--"

"Please let's not get ahead of ourselves. I still need the basics, ma'am." She bowed her head, as much from calculation as embarrassment. Throth hid her eyes behind her mouth tentacles from shame at shaming an Exalt. "Look, let's start with the derivation of Essence. Energy comes from a lot of sources, but given what you say about the structure of Creation and its surrounding universes, I'm thinking that perhaps the primary energy flow, what you call Essence, maybe comes from the differential between universes."

"Please go on. I will try to follow."

Fred had spent all night wracking her brains, trying to work this out, and she thought she had a working hypothesis. "Energy flows from greatest concentration to least, and it sounds as if the greatest potential in these parts is in the Wyld. All the other worlds were made from the Wyld, and the most potential for change is there. So much that it's barely controllable. Then that energy flows through Yu-Shan, then Creation, and finally into the Underworld. You can tap it at any point that you can reach it, but its characteristics are different because it has different surroundings and a different energy density."

"So a demesne is?" Throth asked deferentially, as if she was the student.

"A thin spot where the energy can flow through from 'higher' dimensional planes at a faster rate. You can tap into that by setting up a structure that interacts with it like a mill, and that's what you call a manse."

"Like a mill?" That seemed to be amusing, confusing, and startling all at once. "How curiously simple."

"Well, in the most basic sense. The Essence passing through interacts with some aspect of the structure and sets it in motion, and then the rest of the structure is pushed along by that motion and transforms it into other kinds of energy. The higher the energy level, the greater the potential for change; that's what energy [i]is[/i]."

"What about Elsewhere, then?"

Fred pondered that for a moment. "My best guess is that Elsewhere is a sort of dammed-up region inside Creation or Yu-Shan. I know that's sort of the opposite of what the texts say, that it's outside."

"What the texts say is irrelevant, Exalted One." Throth's face shone again. "Even the greatest minds can be wrong. So says the only surviving document written by Devon himself, the explanation of why he burned his books."

"Um. Well. Anyway, I think Elsewhere is a low-energy region that would be part of the Underworld, if Essence were allowed to flow into it. But somehow the flow has been stopped up, and so there's no change there at all except the occasional introduction of new items in storage. It seems as if it should be outside, but geometry is relative after all, and you couldn't block a space that was really outside. Essence would leak in around the edges."

Throth nodded. "I believe that makes sense. It isn't like any school I've ever read about, but it hangs together. I suppose the only test would be to get you initiated into sorcery and see what you can do with it."

Fred blushed at that. "I dunno. I've done some pretty freaky things with nothing more magical than a toaster. You might not want to see me as a sorceror."

"You have an unconventional mind." Throth stood. "And, yes, that is a compliment. Pardon me, Exalted One, but I must ask if you are hungry. I certainly could use some refreshment."

She gave a nod and a shrug. Her appetites seemed to be shifting, the last few days. Though she still wished she could find a taco. Maybe these people had better ingredients. "What's on the menu?"

*****

Xander was busily trying not to barf. The Skullstone delegation wasn't attacking--which was good, because he didn't think zombies would frighten as easily as pirates--but they had begun negotiations by bringing up an undead cow from the hold. Some part of his mind acknowledged that yes, it could be a practical way of preserving and transporting meat that he would have eaten under any other circumstance...and was promptly seized and beaten to a pulp by the rest of him, which was screaming about horrible unclean abominations.

"Are their ships always like this?" He had Captain Redfang alone for just a moment--except for the zombies trying to wait on them, and those clearly couldn't hear or they'd have taken the cow away. Still, he kept his voice as low as possible. "It looks like they were in a fight with that thing."

"No. No, they can make their ships float with giant holes in the hull and move with torn sails, but generally they don't." Redfang dealt with all this by growing very wry.

"They give you any clue what it was they were fighting?" As far as he was concerned, any enemy of theirs was probably a friend of his.

"Not a hint. I don't think they know themselves. The few living crewmen I've encountered sounded terrified. One of them mentioned a giant man of metal and clay. I have no idea what that could be." The captain absently popped a shred of meat into his mouth, then seemed to realize what he'd done and spat it onto the deck.

"You." The voice was hard, flat, and full of malice. "Solar. What are you doing here? And with [i]them[/i]?"

"You talking to me?" He tried to keep his own tone light. Contrast mattered. "I'm here because I was dumped on a deserted island by..." Hmm. Who had it been again? "Someone who said they were my friend."

"Not the good Captain or her lovely ladies?" The woman--he thought--had cut her green-black hair as short as any of the Tya, which certainly gave her a butch appearance, but something about the way she carried herself was different. Also, while he wasn't sure that [i]all[/i] of the Tya were what Willow would have called trans men, none of them would have worn the soulsteel bustier this woman was wearing. The ones who wouldn't have objected to the emphasis on their breasts would still have said it was ridiculously impractical as armor. Admittedly, if she wanted him to stare at hers, she'd put the skull and crossbones in the right spot. "What are you looking at, Solar? I know what you are."

"You can call me Roberts. The Dread Pirate Roberts. Don't think I've had the pleasure." Captain Redfang was grinding his teeth. Every now and then he had trouble thinking of the captain and his crew as men--but not in this woman's presence. Her body language was completely different from theirs.

She sneered at Xander, then gave Redfang a look that was clearly meant to be a leer but came across more as if she were sticking out her tongue. "Call me Ebon Siaka...Roberts. You're not the first Solar I've met. Though Darktide has far more sense than you."

"Well, you're definitely the first...whatever you are...that I've run across." Something about her made his skin crawl. She breathed without thinking about it, yet something about her made him think of Angelus all the same. Not even Angel, who at least pretended to goodness--Angelus at his worst.

"I serve the Silver Prince," she said. "That's all you need to know."

"The Silver Prince had a lot of trouble with giant robots lately?" He doubted he could pump her for information with any success, but it hardly hurt to try.

She gave him a blank look. "Giant...what? No, I don't even know what you're talking about, Roberts." Well, that was more than he'd expected. She'd fought a giant [i]something[/i]. Also, he suddenly noticed she was wearing a sidearm--an actual gun of some kind, though it looked as if it might be more of a raygun than a bullet-gun. Strange.

"A giant...metal man?" Siaka stared at him, then gave a snarl. A second one to the Captain, and then she turned away.

"Done with you, Roberts. You've got nothing to trade. Help us make repairs and we'll go back to port and leave you be."

Xander gave Redfang a conciliatory look. "That sounds like a bargain where she's concerned. I say we take it." Ebon Siaka half turned, as if she'd heard him, but she just shrugged and muttered something about "respect" and "Darktide". "I don't guess you know what she is?"

Redfang put his hands up. "I couldn't tell you. She's surely Anathema of some kind--no offense, just the name they give you--but she and you seem nothing alike. Still, you both have the same...aura of power. In a way. But I can tell you I helped drop her into the ocean with an anchor stone chained to her legs. I don't know how she lived through that. She was just a pirate then."

"She's not undead, is she?" Maybe she could breathe and still be undead.

"Not in any sense I've ever heard of. Let's get back to my ship." All Xander could do to that suggestion was nod.

*****

The Maiden kept quiet and still. It wasn't as hard as it used to be, and not merely for lack of need to breathe. Whatever else she thought of the Mask of Winters, he had taught her to exercise patience. To wait for the proper moment before her kill. A fly buzzed about her eyes. Landed on the left one. She ignored it.

She had only been awake for a few minutes. Her throat still hurt. She'd nearly bungled the masquerade. That bitch...the one who'd wrapped the Maiden's own chain around her throat...she was going to pay in screams. She'd almost gotten up and slain the woman then, but at the last moment she'd remembered the Mask's orders. She was here to observe and study. He'd promised her the random fools standing guard, and she'd taken most of them. The slaves, sadly, seemed to have gotten away.

When he was done with them, she could kill the ones he had no use for. If she had ever prayed for anything, she would have prayed he had no use for any of them.

"...not sure Anya's going to make it. She's developing some kind of infection in those cuts." That was one of the mysteries she was here to investigate--the taller of two undead demons. No one had ever raised such a creature; the Mask was convinced the Yozis would never have permitted it. The Void was more powerful than they were, naturally. Why should it not be that simple? But he could not see it.

Wait. Was the bitch going to die of her wounds? The Maiden could not permit that. Not only would it infuriate the Mask of Winters--no, more importantly it would infuriate [i]her[/i]. She was going to peel off this Anya's skin inch by inch. She had earned that torture.

"Well, then, we've got to get her to the city!" That was the smaller demon. He seemed the more hot-headed of the two. And, again, undead. Bizarre. He had already healed from being hamstrung. An ache in her neck suggested [i]he[/i] had fed on [i]her[/i], which might well explain that.

"There's no guarantee they can save her, Spike."

"It's the best chance she has! Willow's already done everything she can for her." That was the next anomaly. The blond sorceress had shown no facility with spells that required her to be more than an Enlightened mortal. The redhead, by contrast, surely had to be something more. Yet no one seemed to think she was an Exalt of any sort, and she showed no other signs. There was an outside chance that she might be some sort of god-blood; there were stories of a few of them mastering greater sorceries. 

Anya herself was the next anomaly, though the Maiden was unsure what kind. The Mask of Winters had called attention to her for some reason, but had told the Maiden nothing of why he wanted her observed. Still, she had done much more damage than the Maiden expected from any mortal. She forced her hands not to twitch with the need to wrap around Anya's throat. That would be noticed. Was she going to have to save the woman herself just to have her around to kill?

The demons moved away, still chattering. "...slaves ran for Paragon the first chance they got..." "...bloody fools...you hear what Buffy said they have you do there?" Heh. She herself would not think of swearing on the Perfect's scepter, even if the Void did not have her allegiance already. At least the demons had that much sense. Though had she somehow been in the place of the slaves, she'd have run from herself as well. That much was merely sanity.

She could not fathom why they had not just discarded her body and run for the city themselves. There should not be so much difficulty in carrying just Anya, and surely they had no concern for the Dune People, not that many of them should still be alive.

The last puzzle moved into her field of vision. The youngest of the group reached out as if to touch her face, then pulled back at the last moment. Apparently this one's sister resembled Kenda rather closely. What of it? It was a chance resemblance, if an odd coincidence.

Wait. The Maiden had thought of herself as "Kenda". She'd barely done that when she was alive. That was just a word her parents had used to tell her what to do. What in the name of the Void--? Kenda choked down a wave of revulsion. She had killed her brother; now the urge to do the same to this girl rose up in her like magma surging toward a volcanic vent. She was [i]not Kenda[/i]. That name was gone. She had cast it aside like the rubbish it was. And she should not feel...sisterly...toward this girl. The worst of it was that for the barest instant she hadn't hated the little brat. She had cared for her. Like a sister. Now that moment only fueled her rage, but it had been there. She had no damned [i]sister[/i]!

Had the girl not turned away at that very moment, she would have seen K...the [i]Maiden[/i] reach out for her, hands clawed to rip the life from her, before wrenching back control of herself. No one--no one!--could do that to her! Was she Exalted too? No, surely the Maiden would have sensed any such charm she tried to use on her. And no one else had commented on her, or any powers she might have. The older man had even spoken about how vulnerable she was. She hadn't taken part in the fight; she had run and hidden.

What the hell was she? A ghost? A god? A demon? Or....

Shit.

Well. Tonight was going to be an interesting night.

*****

"Cast off there!" Xander could tell Redfang was eager to be gone. All the crew were. Truthfully he shared the feeling. The Skullstoners--Ebon Siaka aside--had been pretty diplomatic, but the living ones spoke with perpetual reverence about the dead, by which they clearly didn't mean grandpa in his tomb so much as the zombies and ghosts who made up at least half the crew of the whole fleet. Some of the ghosts at least seemed like rational beings, but others had been leashed and had stared at him as if craving his blood despite their chains.

"If we don't find Fred in another day," Xander said with a sigh, "I guess we had better head for An-Teng." That was the next closest port of call to where they'd been picked up. By someone. Who? Why couldn't he place his...her...his name? Or face?

"You say she went down to some undersea city?" The captain shook his head. "I don't know that we can find her at all, unless you can breathe underwater too."

Maybe he could. Maybe. Xander didn't think it was the right time to risk that. "I don't guess the name Luthe means anything to you?" Redfang just shrugged.

"Cast off!" The last of the connecting lines were pulled free of the Skullstone ship, and the anchor lifted.

"I guess we should just head to An-Teng. We'll figure out how to reach Fred later. Or she'll reach us. I'm sure she can take care of herself now." Xander wiped his forehead. So far all he'd done was escape from an island and throw some illusions. Useful illusions, but still. He couldn't even begin to imagine how Fred could change shape like that. Anyway, clearly he was the least powerful of the bunch, just like always. By the time he got back, Anya would probably be flying around like a bird. Or granting wishes again.

Captain Redfang unstrapped the wheel. "Undoubtedly. From what you say she survived in the wilderness for years with no powers at all. She--"

The sky opened up into dizzying violet spirals. Out of the vortex descended a...spaceship? Okay, what now?

"Surrender now," boomed a voice louder than Xander's had when the Lintha were attacking. "Your ships cannot withstand us. Your free po souls are now property of the Eight Nations. Give them to us, or they will be confiscated."

A hatch opened, releasing uniformed troopers who began dropping the last few feet onto every deck in sight. And beyond those...a girl, nearly naked, with crystals sprouting from her head, elbows, and knees. She smiled--not friendly, not fierce, just...satisfied. "They won't surrender, Gathered Might. Deploy the ephemera trap. Militia, ready your motonic packs and fire at will!"

The soldiers' backpack-mounted weapons looked familiar. And out of the spacecraft above them descended a giant...huh. "Who're you gonna call?" Xander said softly.

"Captain," he said, touching Redfang's arm. "If you're looking for a chance to fight zombies...I think we're on the side of the new guys."

Redfang chuckled nervously. "I'd almost say you just wanted to get in that girl's pants. If she were wearing any. Thing is, I have to say I agree." He lifted his sword. "All right, men! Let's kick some dead mens' asses!"


	10. To Nightmare Vexed

The blade sank into the nearest zombie's neck with a crunch, and Xander reminded himself that his entire combat career had been spent fighting undead. Well, undead and demons. Weirdly, Redfang seemed to talk about those two as different, probably incompatible, things. He'd been bitten a few times, but so had everyone else; no one seemed to worry much about turning into zombies. He hoped that meant they wouldn't.

  
What made him worry was that out of the powers he'd unlocked so far, none of them seemed to have much to do with combat. The things he'd done so far had been mind tricks, or construction-related. That made sense for him--he was a glorified hard-hat, not a soldier or even a policeman. But everybody kept telling him that the Exalted had been made as weapons, so how come he didn't seem to have some kind of fallback power, at the very least? What was he supposed to do against mindless things like this?

  
Oh.

  
Well, that was embarrassing. Just the thought had triggered a gut-level awareness of what he needed to do. It had been too basic, apparently. Xander tapped into the energy contained inside him and let it stream out, a gush of brilliant California sunlight tempered by the faint grey shadow of clouds. While he had been pondering, a couple of zombies had moved in on him, raising swords clutched in hands that were little more than bone and tendon, moved by a strength that was more than muscular. A scimitar bit deep into his arm and cut its way free.

  
The wound sealed up, leaving only the hint of a scar. This time when he swung, his blade severed the first zombie's neck with a hiss of fire and cleaved the upraised arm of the other, sending its weapon flying.

  
Xander took a moment to imagine doing that to Spike. Yeah, nice and satisfying. Angel next. Then he was all the way back in the fray, dodging and weaving still, but taking blows here and there...with no more effect than a friendly punch on the shoulder. "Wish I could've done this five years ago!" he shouted as the Captain backed past him, and kicked in the face of the zombie that was forcing her to retreat. Well, he tried, but the head flew clean off its shoulders, bounced off the rigging, and fell into the sea.

This was fun.

The girl with the crystal hair swung by him, swinging a weapon that looked like a spear, but whose gemstone tip left shards in the flesh of every zombie it struck. The thing was longer than he was tall, but Crystal wielded it like a pro, as if she'd had it her entire life. She was shining too, now, a hard, brilliant glitter the shade of a white shirt under a blacklight, and steam hissed from every droplet of water that touched her skin. She moved as if the zombies were barely a concern, though each one she touched died. Of the swirling ghosts that bared their phantom teeth at the enemy, she was more careful, but not because she feared them; rather, she seemed to be trying to herd them toward the soldiers with the proton packs. She wanted to capture them for some reason?

Crystal took up a position behind him."It's an honor to fight alongside you!"

Xander blinked, then laughed, hoping not to sound condescending. "I'm really new at this," he admitted. "You seem like you've been at it your whole life!"

"More or less," she agreed. "Call me Nelumbo."

He frowned--it was a strange name--but knowing she was facing away, he just answered, "I'm Xander."

Nelumbo's soldiers blasted a group of ghosts, who were sucked into the containment unit from the craft hovering above them. It was exactly like "Ghostbusters". Xander began to relax a little. He was kicking zombie butt and taking zombie names--so to speak--and holding his own without any real trouble. "Wish I'd brought some bubblegum," he said with a chuckle. "Looks like we're running low on ass. No offense intended; yours isn't bad, but I'm trying not to stare."

"Don't worry about it," Nelumbo said. "It won't matter, or bother me. I'm flattered. I never expected to meet an actual Solar." She drove her lance into an oncoming zombie's chest. This time electrical arcs blazed over her body and weapon and blasted the thing to smithereens.

"Only been one for a week," Xander chuckled, though he'd spotted another woman--that pirate from a few hours ago, Ebon Siaka, leaping through the rigging from ship to ship. Maybe he should be worried, but he wasn't sure he could make himself be.

"Roberts!" Siaka screamed. "I knew your claim to come in peace was a lie!"

"You've dealt with her?" Nelumbo queried him. "What is she?" Crystalline wings patterned with gears were unfolding from the light that shone around her.

Xander sighed. "I was going to ask you that." He raised his scimitar. "I guess I shouldn't have asked for more ass. I have to admit hers is pretty good-looking."

Nelumbo aimed her lance at the approaching pirate. "Tell it to someone who can appreciate it, Roberts Xander." She came around to stand at his side. "I prefer yours. Er, if that doesn't offend you, noble one."

"I, ah...thanks." Noble one? Just who did she think he was, anyway? "I guess we'd better deal with her, whatever she is."

Siaka didn't give them the chance to debate the matter; she plummeted from the crow's nest, maul swinging, and forced him to dive for the deck while Nelumbo blocked the blow with the shaft of her lance, sparks flying. He really needed to get ahold of some of these cool weapons; the pirate scimitars weren't nearly so durable.

This lady wasn't going to fold nearly so easily as zombies or Lintha pirates, and while Nelumbo probably could beat her, he had a feeling he shouldn't leave the matter to "probably". Trouble was, he needed a strategy. With that hammer she was waving about, Xander suspected she was a good bit more of a combat monster than he was, sunlight or no sunlight.

What was it he had done to the Lintha again? He'd made them afraid. Siaka didn't seem like the type to cave in to fear, though. Could he make her feel something else? Hmm...there was an idea. Anya was liable to kill him for it--but not really, not the way Siaka would. "Nice to see you again, Ebon Siaka. We were just discussing your butt. I've got to say, for an evil zombie-raising pirate, yours is about the best I've seen in a while." Nelumbo made a disgusted noise and shook her head at him while he feinted left and swung his scimitar at Siaka.

Siaka just snorted at him. "I've seen worse than you, Roberts, but not in a fight. What kind of Solar are you?"

He gave a little shrug. "The kind who talks you to death." He made a dive and a grab for her sidearm that he didn't expect to succeed. It didn't, and the haft of her maul clipped him on the head. It hurt, but it didn't give him the concussion it probably should've. "And you're the kind of...whatever you are...that makes your enemies wish you'd wrap your legs around their necks just so they can experience those thighs."

Xander knew he wasn't Buffy's equal at banter--well, he hadn't been, at least--but Siaka blinked as she smashed his scimitar out of his hand to clatter in pieces onto the deck. "Flattery will get you nowhere, Roberts. Though I might be willing to take you up on that wish. It'll be the last thing you see."

"Roberts, what are you doing?" Nelumbo hissed, leaping from the deck to plant a kick in Siaka's midsection.

"Cracking jokes in combat," he explained. "Trust me, the bad guys just hate it. Breaks their nerve, don'tcha know? What, never seen an Exalted do stand-up?" He offered her a wink, hoping she would take it as "trust me", rather than "you're cute too". Although she certainly was.

Siaka made another disgusted noise, this one in her throat. "If you want me to wrap something around your neck, I'm sure I can oblige." She seized Xander's throat in a hold, and he was just beginning to think he'd made a terrible mistake when she yanked him forward and kissed him on the mouth. She immediately recoiled, staring at him, but it looked like he'd gotten hold of her. "What the hell?"

Nelumbo was staring at him too, fortunately with a look of shock and confusion. He'd explain in a moment when he got a chance. Though maybe he could work it into his routine. "Sorry, Siaka, I've been down this road with Faith. She was good the first time, but the whole erotic asphyxiation business turned into a real downer. Anyway, I'm taken now."

"Taken? You're taken, all right." Siaka yanked him forward again, mashing her lips against his. Okay, maybe he'd miscalculated here. But she was trying to make out with him in the middle of a fight, and unless his allies completely misunderstood what he wanted....

Nelumbo clocked Siaka on the head with her lance. "Oh no you don't. This one is mine." Damn it! Now it was Nelumbo pressing up against him, and that naked body felt a lot nicer than Siaka's armor.

With an effort, he pulled away. "Nelumbo, I'm sorry. That was a battle tactic, not a come-on, and I didn't mean for you to get caught up in it. I really am taken." She wasn't a particularly practiced kisser, and her face felt...strange. Not quite exactly like skin. But she certainly wasn't horrible either.

Nelumbo glanced down at Siaka and heaved a deep sigh. Around them the battle seemed to be winding down. Most of the zombies were down on the deck, and the ghosts had been vacuumed up. "I understand, I guess. I don't get a lot of chances with men, and I never get to stay...." She winked at him. "You'll pay for this, you know." At least there was a sparkle in her eye.

Xander shook his head slowly. "I know. Boy, will I ever." Even if he didn't do anything more...definitely best not to tell Ahn.

"We need to take the po souls back to Autochthonia," Nelumbo said regretfully. "The shortage is approaching critical levels, and with the Eight Nations still squabbling, I...never mind that. I'd love to have you come with me. And we could find you some real equipment."

Xander kept his eyes on the twitching zombies rather than face her. "As much fun as I think that'd be, I'm looking for a lost friend, and my girlfriend is somewhere around here too. She's tough, but I worry that this place is tougher." He bent down and picked up Siaka's raygun. "I bet this'll come in handy."  
He expected her to sigh and start gathering her men. Instead, she scowled. "I...Gathered Might will forget me, but he won't forget the mission. He knows how important it is to get those ghosts back to the Ewer of Souls." She glanced down at the tiny cape over her shoulders, and it became a short, simple dress. "Mind if I stay and help? I've wondered for a long time what Creation is like, and it looks like a lot of my guesses were wrong."

Xander didn't have to think about that one. "Honestly, I could use some help getting used to all this. I'm not from around here myself. You teach me what you know, and I'll tell you about where I come from, and...you'll get some adventure along the way."

Nelumbo offered her hand. "Deal."

*****

Buffy's instructor flowed smoothly through katas that looked like nothing she had ever seen before, but she followed along with ease. Practice with Giles had never been like this. He knew the rudiments of a few ordinary martial arts, but he was a mortal in late middle age, and she was...what she was. Whatever that was.

"Go on," Cearr muttered from his cot. "What're you waitin' for?"

Buffy honestly didn't know what to tell him. _Waiting for someone to tell me it's all a mistake? Waiting because, if I do this, I have to admit I'm like him?_ It wasn't even the truth. Unless everyone she'd spoken to was lying through their teeth--and her powers told her they weren't--supernatural martial arts were something any Exalt could learn, with a few caveats here and there.

Instead of answering, she took a deep breath and closed her eyes, balling her fists up until her knuckles cracked. She didn't have to be on the Yozis' side to use their power. She had fought demons for five years now and kicked butt doing it. A vague phrase drifted through her head about demons fighting demons and was gone. It didn't matter. All that mattered was what she could do. She was a Slayer, and she was _damn_ good at it.

Her eyes snapped open, shining with a searing light she could feel as a brief moment of pain. She'd worn loose robes for this, and here was the reason--bulging muscles, cracking sounds as her limbs grew longer, skin stretching taut. She half expected her skin to turn green. So this was **Infernal Monster Form**. She wasn't angry. Cearr might be disappointed, but he should aleady know he wouldn't like her when she was angry.

Buffy slammed a growing palm against her instructor, sending him flying into the wall, and felt her muscles swell larger still. The longer she fought, the stronger she could grow. The power surging through her was like nothing she had felt before--perhaps a little like when she'd first realized she could punch vampires through walls, and maybe again when she'd turned into cave-girl. Maybe closer to that second one; there was something that felt more "natural" about this, at least in the sense that muscle was a more natural source of strength than magic.

Of course, if she did this in something other than dojo robes, she'd probably end up starkers again. The world just was not fair when it came to clothes.

Cearr clapped weakly from the cot. "Still wondering what you need me for, girl. I should've respected you from the start, but you just didn't look like Slayer material to my dumb ass."

"I need to know how to organize an army." She'd been taught to fight alone; she'd learned to fight with small groups of friends. She had no idea how to mount a military campaign.

"You've never led people in combat, kid?" Cearr grunted. "Well, seems like you're par for the course among Slayers, actually. Too many brutes, not enough generals. Again--I'd never have thought you were the type for that either."

"Well, there was that one time--"

"One time?" Cearr interrupted. "You win?" He raised an eyebrow, a gesture which didn't seem to suit his thick-boned face at all.

"The world didn't die, so yeah. I lost a few people, but the Mayor got blown up just as planned and didn't even manage to eat much of anyone. Principal Snyder, mostly. No big loss." She wasn't about to admit she felt sorry even for Snyder, not to this big lug.

"You better explain this one, girlie. Your town Mayor ate some people and then got blown up?" Cearr's quizzical expression was even stranger on him than Vulcan-brow.

"The Mayor had been planning for years to turn into a true demon. Maybe something like a Third-Circle, maybe even a Yozi--"

Cearr laughed out loud at that. "No way anything human's ever going to turn into a Yozi. But a demon...well, I guess I've heard of things like that. Go on."

"Anyway, he'd made himself invincible till he transformed into a giant snake demon and so we had to work out how to kill him afterwards. I'd always been told that a Slayer worked alone, but instead I armed the whole school. Crossbows, swords, think I even had a few flamethrowers in the mix. Everyone attacked when I'd told them to, and we beat up his demon army and herded him into the school library where we'd stacked about a trillion boxes of explosives. It wasn't pretty, but most of us lived through it, and he didn't."

Cearr began to make a choking sound deep in his throat. It took a moment to realize he was laughing. "Tell me again how you have no idea to lead an army? I don't know what he was, but I'd guess Second-Circle at least. Maybe Third. Couldn't have been a Yozi, mortals just don't become Primordials of any stripe, but maybe a Third. And you offed him with minimal casualties?"

"Well, we hit him early when he was still hungry from the transformation--"

"Meaning you planned it perfect, no? You organized a campaign of teenage students with, I'm guessing, no battle experience, against a possible Third Circle demon and his demon support force. And you killed him with minimal casualties on your side. And you're asking me to train you in how to fight a war." Cearr was all but doubled over laughing now.

"Well, what about resources, then? How do I feed an army? Or pay one? How'm I supposed to keep the war going after a day's gone by and the enemy are still out there running around?" He was so...frustrating, and she was furious, and....

"Hmm, guess you really might not know that. I can tell you about it, but first answer me a question. Isn't this a strange shape to be asking me about all this in? Sure, you're not just a fighter, but that's not what Infernal Monster form is for, now is it?" Cearr waved one weak hand toward a brass stand-mirror. "Get a good look at yourself."

Buffy stomped her way over to the mirror. So she was bigger. What about it--? Okay. Okay, she saw what he meant. She was well over six feet tall, but that was the least of it. She wasn't as absurdly muscle-bound as Cearr had been in this form, but her limbs were twisted knots of muscle all the same. She'd seen female bodybuilders, and neither she nor they looked like She-Hulk as she was usually shown in comics. More than that, Buffy was hunched forward, her brow as thick as the Neanderthals those guys had turned into during the cave-beer business. No, this was not a good look for her at all, no matter how strong and utterly _deadly_  she felt. And Cearr was right, too. "Not exactly honors student material. Not even at West Point." He lifted that thick eyebrow again. "Military academy."

"Give the damn thing a bit more of a test-drive, kid. When you're good and finished, I'll tell you about supply lines. But this deserves to be enjoyed, and you ain't gonna do that talkin' strategy." Cearr's laughter was finally subsiding.

"Point taken," Buffy acknowledged. She looked back to the sifu. "Get me an opponent worth my time," she growled.

The little demon tilted his head, considered a moment, and sent her flying.

*****

It slunk silently through the shadows, ragged, haggard, a starveling thing possessed of immense power it had no way to use. The sun seared it, shamed it, scared it, and so it clung to darkness. Yet it needed to find a host, oh so harshly, so humbly it needed a host.

This was not the world it had been forced to slumber in, and now it was constrained even more tightly than before. Its inmost nature bade it seek out a warrior, yet the first of several layers of restraint, the most elegant, demanded it find a host on the verge of death. A heroic host to match its own innately heroic nature, yet a host who had failed and fallen. A much looser restraint came from the nature of its most recent hosts: it was so much more familiar with children. Yet this conflicted with the first requirement. The entity sensed child soldiers fighting half a world away, felt the pull of some few of them, but it would have to go so far, hurt so much, alone under the searing sun. Surely something could be found sooner, closer. The last layer of restraint, crude yet compelling, demanded it find a girl, young but not so young as it would have preferred.

All these layers of contradictory compulsion tore it till it could scarcely stand existing, but it could not die. It would search, it would seek...Wait. A possibility.

The entity wove through the walls, through hospital halls, among the diseased and the dying. A room, penciled papers peppering the walls. Brave knights driving dragons before them, white amoeboid things devouring monsters labeled "leukemia". The girl on the bed had not always been such a wasted thing.

There had been muscle, there had been strength. Not the strength of true warfare, but combat of a sort. And still she had the spirit of a fighter.

The entity had made do with less before, under the direction of its mistress.

It coiled around her. That fierce strength was failing, her life leaking away. The entity settled against her bald forehead and prepared to offer itself to her.

Choking fluids began to fill her lungs. She began to thrash and gag. Alarms awoke, and a hustle heralded the arrival of the last guard against mortality.

The last guard save one. _Come to me,_ the entity whispered urgently in her mind. _Come to me, little warrior, and live._

She clutched it to herself, desperately, begging. Sizzle and pop went the lights. Crack went the machines that had failed her. Darkness flooded the room.

_Yes, my dear, yes. Be mine. Be me. Live._

_Live forever._

*****

Sage of the Depths had laughed, but not unkindly, and taught her what she asked. Hungry for knowledge, he had called her, and Fred was. No question about that.

The question, instead, was _What kind?_

She scurried through gaps between the walls, between electrical wires and steam tubes and conduits that carried a power she had only just begun to understand. Six little legs bearing a body flatter than a cookie but larger than a mouse. That was important: larger than a mouse. Fred had taken the Sage at his exact words, and been proven right.

Not that munching on cockroach had been the least bit less disgusting than she had expected.

Here there had been power failures, more times than she could count, and few of them had been repaired. This was the prison cell and only refuge of those who called themselves Dragon-Blooded, but who were known to all others in this place as Traitorspawn. No one looked twice at the roaches, no matter how big they grew down here. The people she saw shuffled through life, working as listlessly as their overseers allowed. Some few were offered privileges for the honor of keeping their fellows under tight control. Standard slavery stuff.

The Dragon-Blooded she'd seen on land would be outraged. They would descend on this place and slaughter the offenders. They might also slaughter the oppressed for being too weak to escape. And in any case, if they didn't, they'd just raise the kids to be as arrogant as their parents had been down-trodden.

She had to find another way to free them, even if she could have worked out how to leave.

One of them seemed different. He moved through his nightly shifts of sweeping and scrubbing the ancient decks with a touch more energy, no matter how he hard he tried to conceal it. The overseers seemed to take it as fear. Fred knew better. She had crawled the walls while Gavrane Tomazri practiced, thinking himself hidden in his quarters.

Of course, if she could discover this, so could Sage of the Depths. Or Swims-In-Shadow, or Leviathan, or another Lunar trained by them. But clearly they had overlooked the boy, or he would be long dead. Fred thought she might know how. During her first attempt to watch him, he had suddenly flinched and then begun smashing cockroaches. Fortunately the rest had scurried away, giving her cover to escape as well. After that she'd learned to stay more carefully hidden, though the average roach in Luthe had ceased to care about the dimly flickering lights on the Traitorspawn levels. Tomazri had a charm that told him he was being watched, perhaps not precisely where, but close enough he had been able to recognize that a bug was responsible. It had been a month before he had dared do anything visible again, even in secret. Clearly he knew a Lunar had been observing him, though he might have thought the insects were minions rather than a disguise.

Sooner or later she was going to have to approach him. Tonight, however, she turned away. Fortunately, the other problem wasn't far; traveling as a roach was time-consuming.

She lifted her protective tegmen, spread her inner wings, and flew. The Traitorspawn showed just enough disgust not to let her land on them, and she didn't try. Through the corridors she zoomed, over mildew and mold, past piles of fish guts ready for disposal, her instincts calling her to alight. She would, but not until she was done. The remaining layer of disgust not quelled by instinct she had learned to ignore in Pylea, out of necessity. You ate what you had to eat to survive. And in this form, it didn't even taste bad. Not much did.

She felt as if she were hurtling along, yet at the same time it felt like reaching the lifts took hours. The truth was somewhere between the two; she was still learning to interpret time and distance at this size. The lifts here had been unresponsive for centuries. That was only the first barrier of the gauntlet she would have to run.

Fred knew how to respond to multiple layers of traps, of course: cheat. Sage of the Depths understood that she wanted to spy on the Traitorspawn, and had been amused by her method of doing so, but as far as she knew he had no clue of her other motive for taking this form. She landed on the edge of the lift doorway and searched about with her slightly-confusing compound-eye vision. There it was.

Fred slipped through a tiny gap in the plating and into the space between Essence conduits. Security here was unbelieveably tight, but it had been aimed at containing mortals and probably Dragon-Blooded. For a Lunar to think of invading the command deck must have been almost unimaginable, probably because out of the three hundred in existence most had been authorized to be here. So far Fred had faced three bug grids and disabled two of them with her jaws and a tiny metal pin. Undoubtedly there were other extermination-traps to be bypassed--poisons, maybe, possibly even enthralled predators. Fred was under no illusions that this would be an easy trek. But compared to facing Essence cannons and bound demons?

She was going to make it. It was just a matter of time.

*****

Faith.

That was her name. Faith. LeHane. Right. Fingers scrabbled beneath the covers, found the IV, the catheter. She had done this before. Or was that in her dreams? Her hand found the faint scar on her belly. But there should be more, if the rest was real.

Her hand slipped from beneath the white, white sheets, up to her face. Her left eye was filled with cotton padding. She lifted it and felt at the sunken skin beneath. Her field of vision remained unchanged.

With an immense effort, she shoved the world away from the back of her head and felt there too. The skin was intact, but a great patch of her hair was gone. Beneath a thin layer of flesh she found a gap in her skull. Smaller than a bullet should have left, but still there.

So it hadn't been a dream. And Slayers healed from more than she had expected. Maybe her eye would grow back. Who knew?

Faith slithered out from beneath the covers and put her feet on the ground. The world spun. She hadn't felt this dizzy in years. Holding her arms out to her sides, she stood anyway. A supreme effort of will firmed up her footing. Brain damage. She had to have brain damage. That was why her memory was full of little gaps, and that was why she was having difficulty walking. Only, she wasn't, not really. All she had to do was focus. Surely that was too easy.

She shambled her way out into the hall. Her balance might be working fine, but her motions seemed off. She hoped she didn't look like a zombie. Hell, she hoped she wasn't a zombie. How would she know? Mirror. She needed a mirror. The hallways were mostly empty, though an orderly hurried down a distant hall shoving a laundry cart.

Faith stumbled and found herself in another part of the hospital. No. It wasn't that simple. She'd lost some time. More *fucking* brain damage. That had better heal, damn it! Some of it must have already or she wouldn't be up walking around. A quavery, elderly voice was muttering behind one door. Old folks, probably long-termers by the look of the cards on the doors.

There was a nurse's desk not far away. She could hear them talking. One of them was getting up. Faith slipped into an empty room. They'd drag her back to her room for who knew how long. Plus tip off whoever tried to kill her. She remembered fragments of that. Most of all she remembered deflecting a bullet with the side of her skull. She knew she kicked ass, but that was wicked crazy.

Someone tugged at her gown, and she spun, fists up. No one--wait. A little girl, maybe twelve years old? Sheesh. Cancer, probably; her hair was gone. Or maybe brain surgery. "Don't spook me like that, kiddo. What're you doing here? This ain't the kids' ward."

"Same thing you are. I got bored. The doctors look at me funny. And they call me by my old name. I'm not supposed to use that one anymore. It's more comfortable in places like this anyway. Long-term care, terminal ward...the morgue." The girl angled her toes together and stared down at them.

Faith scratched her cheek. "Okay, what'm I supposed to call you, then? I'm Faith."

"That's a neat name. You religious?" The girl flinched a bit at the idea, so Faith decided to be completely straight with her.

"Not a bit. Never got into it." In fact, the only person she knew less religious than her was Buffy.

"Oh, okay." Her expression was as dejected now as it had been nervous before. Great. Just great. "Anyway, you can call me Shoat."

"Shoat?" What was a Shoat?

She nodded. "Shoat of the Mire."

*****

So this was how it ended. A thousand years of vengeance and it all came down to one nasty infection. This was why that whole Valhalla business had failed--did this count as the straw death, or dying in battle? Anya shivered and tried to huddle under her inadequate blankets. She could hear each breath rattle in her throat. The only places she wasn't paler than Spike, who sat watching her, were the angry red-and-purple-and-green welts all over her arms.

"Tell Xander--"

"He knows you love him," Spike said with the tenderness that always surprised stupid humans. Oh, right, she was one of those now or she wouldn't be dying.

"Yes," Anya groused, "he does. Tell him to take care of the money." Only the money was out of reach, wasn't it? Well, he had better get back to it! Especially if she didn't. Who would take care of the money if they both died? Bloody hell, it was hot! She threw off the blankets.

Something shifted behind Spike. It looked like the Maiden of the Mirthless Smile, but must have been a hallucination. They'd thrown the Maiden's body out in the sand a couple of days ago so Spike and Angel could try to drag Anya to Paragon. Obviously it was too late, but they'd tried. The hallucination of the Maiden grabbed Spike from behind.

"I'm taking back what's mine," the hallucination hissed, and sank gigantic saber fangs into Spike's neck. This was all very ridiculous. She hadn't been a vampire, and even if she had nobody had lumpies that thick or fangs that big. Spike struggled and flailed and yelled for help. No, that must have been part of the hallucination.

Anya was sinking deeper into the darkness. She could hear the scuffling, but there was nothing but shadow left to see. It wasn't fair. Xander and Fred had ended up with superpowers for standing up to the superpowered bullies. Whereas she, she tried it and she got to die slowly and painfully. Why hadn't she gotten any powers?

_Because my sister has no part in you, nor you in her, Aud Outspoken, though you follow always in her wake. The time had not yet come._

The Norns were sitting in the room with her. That was ridiculous. She'd stopped believing in the Norns ages ago, and anyway there were only supposed to be three of them. Anya tried to figure out which one was talking.

_I will not say, "Long have you awaited this moment," Anyanka, Chooser of the Slain. You have awaited nothing. You have pursued this moment across a millennium, and always it has shaped your path._

It was the one with the shears. That figured. Well, it'd been a good run. Cut her thread and be done with it.

 _No, say rather: Long has this moment awaited_ you _, and you come upon it prepared, Anya Christina Emmanuela Jenkins...Chosen of Endings._

Skuld handed the shears to her.


	11. Not Gonna Write You a Love Song

Flicker-flash. Deep indigo light, a shade one might see on heat-treated steel. Like light glimmering on shears as they closed.

"That's my vampire you've got your hands on." Anya lifted her head from the filthy straw. Strength was filling her again, and she held the Norns' shears. In her mind, that was, not her hands, but that was good enough. She dug the shears deep into the infection that marred her arms and poisoned her body, and cut it free. The gangrenous colors began to fade at once.

"What will you do about it, weakling?" The Maiden of the Mirthless Smile sneered at her. "You hurt me once. A little. I hurt you far worse. Now you can't even rise from your deathbed."

_Thank you. Xander._ "Maybe you're right, you miserable vomitous mass. Maybe I'm only lying here because I haven't got the strength to stand. Maybe it's all a bluff." She gathered all her growing strength into her arms and shoved. Slowly, shakily, she rose to her feet. "Or maybe I have the strength after all." She lifted her fists as the shaking eased. The wounds remained, but at least they weren't bleeding. Anya opened herself to the energy flows of this world, touching a source of power she hadn't felt since becoming human--and it had never felt so immense when she was in D'Hoffryn's service. "Drop. Your. Sword."

The Maiden shoved Spike to the ground and charged. Well, you couldn't win them all.

**Chapter 11--Not Gonna Write You a Love Song**

Standing above the Loom of Fate, Ayesha Ura smiled. "What did I tell you again, Chejop? Look. Look what you nearly destroyed."

The widening of Chejop Kejak's eyes was small, but it was perceptible. "Her Essence shouldn't be that powerful. She's visibly rippling the threads, do you see that?"

"Yes, Chejop. I see it." Ayesha had no more idea how the new Sidereal could be this powerful than her rival did, but she would certainly make use thereof. Of course, as soon as he recovered from his shock... "Say, that wasn't by any chance a Throne Shadow charm, was it? An easy one, but think of the potential that implies."

"I see your point. It may have been an unnecessary risk, but that's done with now." His fingers flicked momentarily at the region near the shimmering thread. "And the Deathknight she's fighting is likely too much for her. Too experienced." Chejop rubbed his temples in frustration. "We can't afford to lose her, can we? Dispatch her some assistance. Iron Siaka's in her office, no?"

"Just got back," Ayesha said wryly. Chejop knew that, knew that she'd suggest a Gold Faction member to balance things out. And he didn't care, because two would be a prudent response level for this, and she'd never just let him have this windfall without opposition. "She'll be tired. Crimson Banner Executioner's ready for a new field mission."

Chejop nodded. "Fine. I'll get her. You get him. Have them retrieve that girl at once."

*****

The Maiden charged, and to Anya, the future unfolded like a map. Attack trajectories, paths out of the way, possible responses.... The great cleaver of her blade came down, and Anya simply stepped aside, leaving it to cut through the pile of sweaty straw.

Trickles of energy rushed into her, spent almost at once as she lunged. The world flickered around her. Somewhere there was a timeline where she had picked up a sword. Somewhere in another she was wearing chain mail. Those weren't her world...and yet they were. The knife edge of Anya's palm bit into the Maiden's trachea like a blade. She hadn't even thought to dodge.

The Maiden stumbled backwards, rubbing her partially crushed windpipe. "Nice try," she rasped. "Won't underestimate you again, little girl."

Anya forced a snicker. Powers or no powers, the best chance she had here was bravado. Same as before, really. "You won't, huh? Like you weren't going to after I choked you out." She couldn't maintain the laughter. A smirk, then. "Little girl, you say? I was wreaking bloody vengeance before the Scarlet Empress was a twinkle in her mommy's eye. Well...relatively speaking, I mean." Don't fumble. Keep it up. "I've bathed in blood and worn entrails like a dress. I've cast down monarchs and replaced them with genocidal tyrants. They called me Anyanka, Patron Saint of Women Scorned. You? You're  
nothing to me. You don't rate...little girl. So bring it on. If you dare."

The Maiden's eyes bulged, her pale cheeks turning red with fury. She swung her blade, and Anya stepped aside almost casually. Almost. Each time she evaded the sword, she felt a eush of power. The Maiden was actually trying now. And she did still have that sword. Best to try and end this fast. Anya dropped low and lashed out with a foot. This time her opponent leapt over her.

"I will make you beg for death...Anyanka. Old woman, then. I will make you beg to have died before ever you met me. Pray for mercy, Anya. Pray to me now." The Maiden advanced, sword flashing through an unbreakable pattern. Anya rolled to the side, feeling fate blur around her as that immense blade came down at her throat. The weapon skimmed her neck, nicked her shoulder, and slid away having no more than left a trickle of blood. In many possible realities, that sword had sliced off Anya's head. The Maiden snarled in fury.

Sooner or later, Anya suspected, she was going to get _really_ angry.

*****

"Long story short," Cearr said casually, "is you've wasted a lot of time and effort. Learning the Excellencies of more than one Yozi? Fool move. As simple as that."

"That's not what Sulumor said. Or Cyan." She knew better than to trust Cyan implicitly, but there were things that it was dumb to lie about even to manipulate people with. Unless, of course, you wanted them to die.

"Those girls want to be on your good side cuz the Yozis favor you at the moment, girlie. They'll tell you what you want to hear, long as it doesn't get either of you into too serious of trouble. Me, I don't like you much. I respect you as a fighter, but you aren't my friend or nothin'. So I'll tell you the truth an' nothin' but." The barbarian shrugged and sat a little taller. He was getting better, and fast. "Don't misunderstand me. I'm not sayin' you won't get any use out of doubling up. You will. For one thing, there's powers you need those Excellencies to work. Though, really, if you wanted to go that route you should've gone with Cecelyne. She's got a long useful list. And, yeah, there'll be times when you can switch off and go from subtle to over the top or whatever. Hell, heard a rumor the other day that somebody'd learned how to use necromancy and sorcery at the same time goin' down that road. But seriously, kid, in general it ain't worth it. Lot of trainin' down the tubes for not nearly enough gain."

"But you respect me." He wasn't pinging on the liar scale, but Buffy figured it could be fooled.

"You beat my ass down, girl. Not many people can do that. Anyway, it was a dumb mistake but you didn't have no one telling you what to do. Ever get a voice in your head that helps you out?" He tapped his fingers against his left temple.

Buffy gave him a flat look before shaking her head. "Nothing like that."

"Hmm. Well, they've said you're different somehow. Personal guess is, it's something that happened during that long missing history thing. How long'd you say? Six thousand years of lone Slayer girls? More? Never mind, the point is you weren't trained properly, the way an Infernal should be, which is why you're playin' catch up now, and why you slipped up so bad."

She gave him the slightest acknowledging nod and tried changing the subject. "Nice place you've got here." He had a Malfean palace like the one she'd been promised, and right now they were out on one of its balconies, beneath a towering wall faced with burnished brass. Nice shade canopy, cool spray from the fountain below them. Capering neomah that she made a point of not looking at, while he stared openly.

Sigh. Aphrodisia and the others kept asking if they'd offended her, and why she kept them around. She might, eventually. They were friends, at least, after a fashion, so at least she wouldn't be just wandering off to some random brothel. She'd been here most of a month; by this point, she really was itching for some sexy fun times. Just...preferably not with a random, and not many people here seemed to get that. Not even Cyan. Sulumor seemed to, but then she also seemed to regard sleeping with any human but a Dune Person as bestiality. Strange, given that she genuinely seemed to want Buffy's friendship, but perhaps Buffy was like a pet.

"Ain't been so great since you crippled me up. Can't enjoy it much." A neomah handed him a drink, smiling and jiggling, and he sighed. "Soon."

"Visitors, m'lord," the neomah said with a nervous smile. "The Peers Sulumor and Cyan Manosque wish to speak with your other visitor." She bowed to Buffy, too. At least she'd stopped trying to show off her assets to Buffy after Cearr objected, but then Cearr seemed to have done that because she was his property, not because it made Buffy uncomfortable. "M'lady?"

"It's all right with me if they join us. You?" She glanced at Cearr, who shrugged.

"They ain't my best of friends. I'll deal, though. We're in it together in the long run. Tell them to come in, bit." The neomah hurried off. "You know that you're just another tool to Cyan. Everyone is, really, but especially Slayers. Point us and strike."

Buffy nodded. She had suspected it. "Manosque?"

"She tell you her name was Nellens? Well, it's on her record of birth, but Manosque's supposed to have been wiped out a long time ago. Survivors want revenge on the Empress. Can't say I blame 'em. Can't say I care too much, either." Cearr upended his drink. "Gonna have to get you some good chalcanth, kid."

Cyan strolled in casually, followed by Sulumor, who took the time for a more imposing stride. The priestess had traded her naughty nun clothes for a more conventional, if expensive, green silk dress, which roughly matched Cyan's blue one.

"Hey," Buffy said, trying to be polite. "You looking for me? You two seem like you might be planning a night on the town."

"You could say that," Cyan agreed. "One might also call it a girls' night out. Or, if you like, an intervention. For you."

"For me." Great. Now they thought she was being self-destructive or something. She was the one who wasn't getting wasted every night she was here! Maybe she could humor them into going away.

*****

"She can't be serious," Chejop muttered under his breath. "Some bizarre hyperbole, I suppose. Before the Scarlet Empress was born, my left foot."

"Suggest another explanation for that level of Essence, then, Chejop." Ayesha found his discomfiture amusing. Of course, the girl did have to be lying or exaggerating somehow. "She takes to this like a natural."

*****

Anya had to take a moment and wave Spike and Angel away. They'd already been hurt facing the Maiden once. They were powerful, for vampires, but they weren't her equals. Not anymore. The distraction cost her the tip of her right pinky. Could've been worse, massively worse. This time she was the one to leap over the Maiden's kick; her motion was awkward, but it definitely carried her high enough. In another five universes she lost a foot. Not here though. Not yet.

She seized the Maiden by the wrist and wrenched, trying to force that immense blade out of her hand, but all that happened was that the Maiden grunted and flicked it at her, forcing Anya to lean way back and let go. She toppled backwards, struggling briefly to regain her feet, but the Maiden was already coming for her again. Surviving the Maiden was one thing; actively hurting her was another. And this time, it seemed plain that she'd been holding back before. The sword came down just to the left of Anya's face as she rolled desperately right. At least she was drinking in that power when the Maiden failed to hit her.

Anya wanted to believe there was a good end to this. That she was capable of ending this monster with Buffy's face. And maybe she was, maybe she was even fated to--but it wasn't going to happen just yet. The Maiden lunged closer, waving that giant sword and forcing Anya to leap away. How many alternate hers had already died, even with superpowers? Too bad she couldn't just banish the Maiden to a world with nothing but shrimp.

Snarling in a ferocious manner she hadn't in centuries, Anya sliced through the Maiden's wrist with her fingernails. Fight with a bleeding sword arm, then. Go on. Fight that way if you could.

The Maiden's smile was a rictus now. Not that she had any intention of stopping. Where was Xander when you needed him? Or even Buffy or Fred? She needed backup.

Or she was going to die here after all.

*****

"I thought you said you had only been Exalted for a week," Nelumbo said with a puzzled frown.

"Exaggerating a little," Xander acknowledged as they loaded Ebon Siaka onto _Gathered Might of the Militat_. "It's been closer to a month, but it doesn't feel like very long. I thought you said Gathered Might was a she."

"Might spends most of their time these days as a troop transport. They don't much care what pronouns you use. They're getting ready to put down roots and become a city, I think." Nelumbo watched Ebon Siaka carefully; the pirate stirred but didn't wake.

"Become...maybe I'll ask more about that later. Speaking of cities, I don't guess you have any way of detecting one underwater?"

"Maybe," Nelumbo said. "I might end up having to go back to a VATS complex and get some Charms replaced, but one way or another I think we can work something out. Why?"

"Someone who...who said they were helping us...dropped Fred off at what they said was an underwater city named Luthe before stranding me on a deserted island. Fred can be a squid. She's a Lunar." Xander scratched at his head for a moment. "I'm having some problems remembering who it was that did it, actually. You ok?" Nelumbo's expression had become oddly sad.

"I'll be all right," she sighed.

*****

"Hello, your worthiness?" Throth-Shulgu peered around Fred's half-open door. "Your food?"

Fred froze, marker in hand. Oh. She hadn't eaten in...when had she eaten last? The walls were covered in equations and diagrams. "Um. Sorry. I'm afraid I've got the place all messed up. I...I've been working on those Essence cannon thingies and..."

"Say no more," Throth said, and handed her a bowl of bread and cooked fish. "It's important." She looked around at the room for a few moments, then shrugged and closed the door.

Fred checked the wall clock. It'd been something like three days since she'd eaten. Yipes! Trouble was, it really was an integral part of her overall plan that she get some of the weapons repaired and remounted on the hull. So she was going all out. The Sage--and Throth-Shulgu--seemed inordinately pleased with her. Her brain fizzed and popped with Essence, and the project seemed incredibly easy. Fortunately fewer than point-one percent of the weapons had damaged orichalcum wiring; there didn't seem to be much of that to scavenge, and she still hadn't figured out how one made more. It seemed completely indistinguishable from gold down to the atomic level! So what was different about it?

She'd figure it out. She could figure everything out like this.

Assuming she remembered to eat.

*****

"We're in Creation?" Buffy looked around the tavern, trying not to pay too much attention to the loud, off-key music. "I thought I wasn't going back to Creation till I left for Gem."

"No," said Sulumor. "You're in training till you leave for Gem. This is part of your training." She gave Buffy a shove toward a table before turning to one of the barmaids. "Maid, get us some beer." The priestess took a seat on Buffy's right. "First step: get you drunk."

"Wait, what?" Buffy was pretty sure religious people didn't like you to do that. "I mean, that's not all that hard, you know. I can't hold my liquor...as the saying goes." Oh no. Please let them not order something harder than beer because she said that.

"Well, why is that?" Cyan asked, sitting on Buffy's left. "You can take a punch that can shatter stone, but you can't take a couple of beers without falling under the table? Don't you see the problem, Buffy? You don't leverage your powers effectively." Buffy glanced around at the other patrons, causing Cyan to scoff. "Even if they could hear us over all the noise, people aren't going to leap to the assumption that we're dangerous or evil. Power comes from all manner of sources."

Sulumor shook her head sadly. "You half-use the smallest portion of what you can do. Part of that is your scruples--which, contrary to what Cyan will tell you, are not always a bad thing--but more of it seems to be your preconceptions of what your power _is_ You were trained to believe you were a superhuman physical specimen. Fine, as far as that goes. But you are so much more than that, Buffy. Every now and then you show more of your capacity. You reason out mystical principles; you organize students to fight a battle. So we know you're not somehow less than us."

"So," Cyan explained patiently, "we're going to try and get you past that. If you can keep yourself sober, fine. Plainly that's progress and we can work with that. But ideally, I think once your inhibitions are down you'll do a lot better." She took a mug of beer from the barmaid's tray and sat it down in front of Buffy. "Drink. Drink it down."

She took a deep breath and downed the beer in one gulp. "'Kay. Hit me again."

*****

Anya slashed at the Maiden again, and again she missed.

So far so good. The Maiden didn't seem to be toying with her. The girl's face, so much like Buffy's, was set with a familiar grim determination that said she was trying her dead level best to cut Anya to pieces and failing. She hadn't gotten any more good blows in, and Anya had hurt her a little. Every time the Maiden missed, Anya gained a little more energy.

That couldn't last forever, though. The Maiden knew things she didn't, and had a big honking sword. Sooner or later she was going to break through Anya's defenses, and Anya had a bad feeling it was only going to take one good hit to bring her back down to lying on the floor. She needed something better to do with that energy--a bolt of fire, a rock mysteriously underfoot to trip over, a set of adamantium claws. Something. All she was coming up with, though, was dodging better and hitting better, and that just wasn't doing enough.

Those seven chains ripped from the Maiden's back in a spray of blood. Damn it, this was getting ugly.

*****

"Okay, I shee what you're shaying." Was she really that drunk already?

"Buffy," Sulumor said patiently, "you can do better than this. Shake it off."

A bubble of rage rose to the surface. "God damn it, how?!" She was standing, suddenly. And curiously steady. "I don't know how to do what you want me to do! It's not that simple for me! It's just not!"

"You're not slurring anymore," Cyan observed. "Much better. If anger helps, then be angry with us."

"Yes, angry helps! It's called adrenaline! That's not something supern--" Sulumor swept a foot under her suddenly, and Buffy leapt, reflexively, above it. "--atur...al."

"You seem awfully steady on your feet, Buffy," Sulumor said. "Must we fight?"

"I have a better suggestion," said Cyan, glancing around the tavern. "Buffy, see anyone you find attractive? Contrary to what you seem to be trying to make us think, I can tell you're not sleeping with your neomah friends. You haven't gotten any in at least a month now."

Buffy tried not to blush, and didn't. "I guess if..." She looked around. "I can see a few. There's tall, dark, and handsome over there." He looked a bit like Angel, but with better hair. "And that redhead, he's got good abs and a nice butt. And, um, the guy over there with the short blond cut, that's--" The spiky-haired blond turned and proved to have a pair of breasts. "Er, my bad, never mind her." Cyan laughed. "No, seriously, I just didn't notice."

"If you say so. Pick one," Cyan said patiently.

"And?"

"And what?" Sulumor said, rolling her eyes. "Get in their pants."

*****

The dragon burst through the gateway and into the Perfect's Palace. "So sorry," Iron Siaka shouted. "Make way! Coming through!" Guards leapt frantically out of the way. "Give our regards to the Perfect! Sorry!"

"Was that really necessary?" Crimson Banner Executioner kept himself flattened on the dragon's back as it spun and twisted down the hallway. "I know we're in a hurry, but couldn't we have used the Lap gate?"

"Lap's still in an uproar," Iron Siaka grumbled. "Everybody's freaking out over the damn 'Anathema' burning the harvest. And yes, I know it was the Dragon-Blooded's fault, technically. They wouldn't have done it if these freakin' walking anomalies we're chasing hadn't flipped their lids, right?"

"You realize one of those anomalies is our new Sid, right?" Executioner wondered as the dragon shot past a series of gold-paneled arches and out the window. "I mean, sure, they hadn't woken yet, but he or she is almost certainly involved in what happened, if only on the sidelines."

"Haven't even proven the first part yet," Iron Siaka disagreed. The dragon beat its wings and rushed dizzyingly toward the city walls. "Could be they were one of the slaves the 'Anathema' picked up."

"Rather be fetching a slave, then?"

"They probably wouldn't be on the verge of death!" She let go with one hand, leaning perilously to the right, and pointed to a pair of tiny figures ducking and weaving amid some distant dunes. "That's gotta be them!" Even as she spoke, one of them lashed out--she couldn't make out exactly what was happening there--and knocked the other to the ground. Chains. Chains sprouting out of a Deathknight's back. "Shit, our side is down!"

"You got anything for her? I'm not exactly a healer." Executioner angled the dragon down till they were speeding just over the dunes in a spreading wake of blowing sand.

"Um, no? I don't know what we're....wait. Shit. Yeah, I know what to do." She reached into a pocket and fetched a quill and prayer strip. "Not exactly my first choice, but it's better than letting 'em die."

"Here goes, then." Executioner let go of the dragon's neck and began leaning left. "Grab him and land!" Paired daiklaives in hand, he let his weight carry him, sliding around the dragon's body till he hung by the heels. Upside down, blades held forward, he slammed into the Abyssal at full speed, releasing the dragon as he did.

"Shit, shit, shit!" Dropping the quill, Iron Siaka grabbed the dragon's neck and dug her left foot into its side. The dragon in turn dropped its left rear claw into the sand, folded its wings, and wheeled around to a rough landing as Siaka dug another quill out of her pocket. "You know I'm no good with these things!"

Executioner was trading blows with the Deathknight and not listening to a word she said. Men! Hands shaking, she scratched out the proper writing on the prayer strip and raced to the newcomer's side. At least it was a girl, looking no older than her early twenties. Her arms were covered in half-healed cuts that looked as if they'd been badly infected until--well, maybe ten minutes ago or less, still trickling pus in places despite the wounds having mostly sealed. A vicious welt, seeping blood in spite of the girl's best efforts to stanch it, encircled her neck. "Damn, that's bad." Of course, if she'd still been mortal it'd already have bled out.

"...know that...dying here...you got some band aids?" Her hair was the faintest of strawberry blondes, her eyes a deep, deep blue. Her tone held only no real humor, only sarcasm. _Maidens preserve me from pretty, snarky women._

Well, there were no real options here. "Recite after me, 'kay?" She spoke the words quickly in Old Realm, then in Riverspeak, then slowly to let the newbie Sidereal pronounce them phonetically since she didn't seem to know Old Realm. They'd have to fix that, and soon. "I vow our lives joined, our Essence shared, our wills as one. May this bond make us one till its appropiate time is past." The strip coiled on itself, split, and melted into a pair of sapphire-studded rings. One slipped onto her finger, the other onto the stranger's, and she felt a rush of weakness as life drained from her body into the other woman. Shockingly, both essence and strength of will flowed the other way! "Take care of that. Get up if you can. We've got a deathknight to kick the ass of." She'd explain later what'd just happened and hope the other woman wasn't too pissed about having her life saved. Some people were crazy like that.

The other woman struggled to her feet, plainly still weak, and raised her fists. "Works for me." Talk about spirit!

Iron Siaka was afraid she might be in love.

*****

Buffy wasn't too certain how she got here, but it wasn't from being excessively drunk. She could feel a pleasant buzz, nothing more. This despite being certain she'd had at least five beers and another five shots of whiskey. She was way over her limit. Somehow, though, she was still functional.

At least as importantly, she was about five millimeters away from the handsome, well-muscled redhead. That is, her butt was that far from his face at the moment, and she was wriggling it. Every movement her body made felt as if it were under her perfect and undeniable control, though at the same time she was pretty sure she was on fire.

The worst of it was that she was trying extremely hard to focus on her lap dance so that she could ignore what was happening to the rest of the tavern. Somewhere in the midst of it she had realized that everyone in the bar, from patrons to maids to her fellow Infernals, were fixated on her as she ground away. Cyan had tall, dark, and handsome and the blonde girl under one arm apiece while they kissed in varying combinations, Sulumor was alone but had slipped a hand inside her outfit somewhere, and in general the rest of the bar was split up into pairs or slightly larger groups, watching Buffy with at least one eye while they made out. More than made out, in a few cases. She really hadn't meant to turn the gathering into an orgy.

Cyan made a dismissive gesture at her, as if to say, "Go on, get a room." The redhead groaned and laid a hand on each of her hips. That wasn't supposed to be how this kind of dancing worked...she didn't care. She twisted around and planted a kiss on his lips. What the hell, what was it going to hurt anyway? No one was even paying attention.

Buffy unfastened her belt.

*****

Angel and Spike were circling Anya and the newcomers, and she was pretty sure she could see the group with Giles and Willow and such appearing over the dunes. They didn't need to be here. Anya needed to finish this without them. The Maiden of the Mirthless Smile was serious and in for keeps this time.

Every time she lashed out with that gigantic blade, Crimson Banner Executioner blocked her with one of his smaller ones and sliced at her with the other. Iron Siaka stayed close to her with the mace she'd called the Dulcet Consolator, smashing at the Abyssal's back whenever the Maiden turned it. Anya was mostly just trying not to die, but she'd managed to trip the Maiden up three times and punch her in the face once.

The rusty chains lashed near her and Anya grabbed for them. This time she could feel just how unlikely that first attempt had been. Had the Maiden been faking that specifically, or had she just gotten lucky? She'd probably never know...nor did she particularly care, thank you very much. Anya hauled on the chain, dragging the Maiden away from Executioner at a critical moment and giving Iron Siaka a chance to bash her in the head with an excited cry.

Executioner was about to run the Maiden through with one of his swords when a distorted whinney echoed a few feet away, and a flickering phantom steed burst between them. The Maiden's free chains wrapped around the horse's skeletal neck, allowing it to yank her off her feet and onto its back. Anya let go just in time to avoid being dragged after her. The Maiden got off one final slash at Siaka as the creature carried her away.

"Damn it damn it damn it!" Anya looked up at Siaka in surprise as the two echoed one another. This ring business, maybe? Or were they just rather alike? Anya held it up. "Tell me this isn't what it looks like?"

Iron Siaka pouted and looked at the bloody ground. "Well, it's sacred to the Maidens. But no, it's not a wedding band, not really. Sorry."

"Don't be. You saved my life. Just don't try to take advantage," Anya said, patting her on the back. "My boyfriend will be back eventually. He's a Solar now, and he'll kick your ass."

Siaka's eyes widened and she smacked a hand over her face. "Dzhe-sus," she said, trying inexpertly to repeat a curse Anya had let fly during the fight. "Chejop Kejak is gonna have my hide." In the background, Executioner began to laugh softly.

"He'll only kick your ass if you make trouble," Anya said, trying to sound conciliatory. "He might even be willing to let you make some moves on me so long as we all share." It wasn't likely, but Siaka wasn't too bad looking. Butch, but men were often strange about that.

"Djzhesus," Siaka muttered again. "How do I get myself into these things?" Anya shrugged. "Look, we need to get you to Yu-Shan where we can get both of us healed up properly and you trained."

"No," Anya said curtly. Siaka started to speak, and Anya hurried on. "Look, we've had four of our little group Exalt one way or another, and the next thing you know someone comes and spirits them away and leaves the rest of us alone in this deathtrap of a hell dimension. I'm not going to Yu-Shan unless I can take my friends with me."

"They could stay in Paragon," Iron Siaka offered, sounding totally reasonable in her way. "Paragon's pretty safe."

"No deal. They come with me, or we all stay in Paragon." Anya stood her ground. If they wanted her that badly, they could take the whole group, but no more splitting the party.

Iron Siaka gave Executioner a scandalized, despairing look. Executioner shrugged. "What's the harm?" he said finally. "They're her guests, and if they make trouble she'll spend her first week on the job getting audited. She may as well get used to office politics." Iron Siaka made a disgusted noise in her throat.

"Good," Anya said triumphantly. She didn't feel that triumphant, but it was important to keep the appearance of victory going. These Exalts were going to take her as she was, and she wasn't going to change for anyone.

*****

Buffy woke up in a strange bed, with a bit of a headache that should have been a ferocious hangover and wasn't.

"Well," Sulumor said from beside her. "That wasn't what I was expecting to happen at all."

"Me neither," said Cyan, "but I'm not complaining."

Buffy had to move three men so she could get up to pee.

Never again.

Seriously, never.

She meant it this time.


	12. To Live In the Action of Death

 Run," Spinel shrieked, and Buffy ran.  Around her the mad cityscape burst into frantic activity as demons of all sorts erupted in screams and roars and violent struggle.  The green glow of her caste mark--she had been practicing all morning at Cyan's behest--only seemed to alarm those beings who caught sight of it.

     "What's happening?"  She needed to sleep more.  If she slept, she could see the future in her dreams.  But since learning that she could live without sleep, Buffy had spent fewer and fewer nights dreaming.  Her dreams were always nightmares of one sort or another, and she never had time to waste on anything but practice these days.

     "Kalmanka, the Arrow Wind," Dharma shouted over the din.  "She carries razors and arrowheads in her grip and flays whoever she catches.  She must've erupted through a tunnel; we usually see her coming further away."

     "She?"  Buffy held hands with Dharma and Spinel and let the others cling to her.  She could get away faster by shoving through the milling mass of demon flesh, except she didn't know where she needed to go.  "The wind is a she?"

     "Adorjan's daughter," shouted Spinel.  "Three stayed mortal, four became winds.  May we please explain later?"

     "She's not supposed to come this near the Conventicle," Aphrodisa yelled.  "I have no idea why she'd be here!"

     Buffy tried to see the Conventicle through the horrific press of bodies.  Spires and towers rose here and there, but amid the chaos it was impossible to tell what building was which.  _Think!  There's a way out of this.  Think!_   No demons would be allowed into the Conventicle without an Exalted, or at least a token marking them as part of one's entourage.  Kalmanka _shouldn't_ be able to enter either, or so Buffy hoped.  But that would mean there was no one heading for the great arena, either, so she would have to cut across the crowds.

     "Dharma, Spinel, on my back!"  She hefted the two demon girls up, one with each arm.  "Aphrodisia, you're on top of them.  Hang on tight."  Finally she seized Marzi and Larimar by the waists.  "Don't let go, no matter what."

     The greatest mass of demons was headed left, away from the Conventicle.  She could try to shove her way through them, but right now she was embedded in a pack of teodozjia; it could be done, but it might not be worth the effort or the time.  Instead, Buffy turned, joining the thundering rush.

     "Buffy, what are we doing?"  Aphrodisia was most willing to question her, especially since the Venom incident.

     "I have to get up to speed!"  Racing along parallel to the teodozjia, Buffy leapt onto the nearest back, spun, and began dashing the other way.  Inevitably the flow tried to carry her away from the Conventicle, but she was faster.  She had to be.  A great cloud of blades was rising over the Conventicle's roof, and if she didn't reach it soon they'd have to find some other reliable shelter--if one existed.

     She was leaping from head to head now, racing over the shoulders of smaller demons.  Even if she had wanted to, there was nothing she could do to help them all.  At least, nothing she knew of could stand up to a wind.  The frantic rush the other way was slowing her perceptibly.  With an immense effort, she poured on the speed, burning through power.  "Coming through!  Hey, I can get you inside!  This way!  Move it!"

     No use.  If they heard her, they were too panicked to listen.  Abruptly Buffy found herself barreling straight for an immense anuhle, towering on spindly legs above the crowd, but with its body low enough to block her path.  "Hang on, girls!"  She could feel them shifting, clinging to each other as well as to her.  One last stride on the back of a confused tomescu, and Buffy leapt into the air, trailing shimmering green light as her feet just cleared the spider-demon's back.

     She came down atop the Conventicle, feet slamming against the immense nerve nexus that collected Ligier's green light.  Scattered obsidian razors clattered against the metal roof alongside her, and Marzi screamed as one of them slashed her arm.  Too far, much too far, but the alternative had been to slam into the spider's belly.  Buffy turned again, turned on a dime, and began to run down the side of the great building.  At least there was no one blocking her path now, but razors and arrowheads and even larger blades were starting to arc in her direction.

     What was she supposed to do with no arms free?  No, she couldn't think that way.  Cyan had been drilling that into her all morning.  The only way to ask that question was in all seriousness: what could she do to block or avoid those blades?  Because there was no question that she could.  "Dharma, Spinel, raise your arms like you're gonna do a cartwheel.  Aphrodisia, hang on to them and let Marzi and Larimar hold your legs.  I've got them."

     "What are we doing?" Larimar asked.  She was crying.  Must be certain she was going to die.  Blades were descending on them like a great flock of ravens.

     "Welcome to the world of group acrobatics."  Buffy dug deep for more power and let herself tilt forward.  Suddenly they _were_ doing a cartwheel, all of them together, with Dharma and Spinel holding them up, leaving Buffy's legs free.  Green flame flared around her, shining past the girls as they clung to her.  "No one's dying on my watch until I say so!  We clear on that, girls?"

     No time for an answer as her feet came back down.  Arrows and assorted blades were descending on them, but as their roll picked up speed the projectiles were briefly left behind, raining down on the Conventicle roof behind them.  The few scattered razors that flew toward them she kicked away easily, now that her feet were free.  They were, however, hurtling toward the great basalt plaza below at an unbelievable speed.

     Dharma shrieked as she lost her grip and went flying, but they were only a yard or so from the bottom and the demon slammed harmlessly into the pavement.  The torus of stone irised slowly open for Buffy.  And as it did so, a thousand screaming blades arced toward them, making one last furious barrage, as if Kalmanka were aware of their impending escape.  For all Buffy knew, maybe she was.

     Digging deep, burning the strength she had always kept in reserve, Buffy hurled the four neomah she still carried through the portal.  She seized Dharma by the leg--"Sorry!"--and spun, thrusting her inside.

     The door had taken at least three seconds to open fully.  It would take as long again to close, and who knew how many blades would fly through in that time.  Maybe even Kalmanka herself.  Buffy spun back to face the Arrow Wind.  She would stand against it or she would die trying.

     A dozen arrows struck her in the chest before she could move...and bounded away in a shower of sparks.  Razors assailed her arms, flying daggers her legs, but Buffy suffered not so much as a scratch, though tiny bits of brass flew from the impacts.  She gave way just slowly enough to let the door close with her inside, making it undeniably plain that she was not retreating, only entering because she had already chosen to do so and could not be swayed.  A great shriek that was not her own, a yowl like that of a great cat, howled around her as a swirling cloud of tarnish-green and brassy yellow sprang up within her aura.

     A greatsword of black steel flew at Buffy's neck.  She must not--she would not--she _chose not to_ flinch.  In this moment, she could withstand anything.

     The edge of the sword struck her at full tilt and rebounded, flinging shavings of glowing brass in all directions.  It struck the nearly-closed door and clattered to the floor.

    Gasping as if she had run a dozen marathons, Buffy began to sink to her knees.  It was Aphrodisia who held her up.  "My liege," she said.  "Show no weakness.  We are yours, and you chose to save us.  Girls," she finished, using Buffy's most frequent form of address.

    Between them, they lifted Buffy and bore her into her townhouse, sitting triumphantly on their shoulders, shining in her banner of wind and storm.

    In her head, fury pounded, and if Buffy listened carefully, she almost thought she might hear words.

**Chapter 12--To Live in the Action of Death**

    Fred picked her way around the carcass, a huge/tiny shell of another roach that had passed this way long before.  Had it not been for the metal sliver on the conduit floor next to its jaws, she might have taken the roach for a natural animal that had managed to come this far by chance.

    No.  Someone had tried this before.

    There was no bug zapper grid here.  That had been her first thought.  She had bypassed those and several mechanical traps with difficulty.  Angling her head back and forth, she made out the tiny nozzles that would release toxic spray.  The question was now: was this a chance failure, or had the Lunars who ruled this underwater realm detected a previous attempt and put a more thorough security system into place?

    With immense care she picked her way around the chamber, just high enough for her to creep through but two-dimensionally broad.  There.  A grid of thin wires.  She could not fly over it.  She would have to avoid stepping on any of them or release the gas.

    How far had she gotten into the system?  How far did she still have to go?

    Clenching her mandibles, she dismissed the question and pressed on.

*****

    "Let's be clear on this, Anya," said Crimson Banner Executioner.  "I understand your desire to take care of your friends.  We're going to accomodate you on this, for the moment."  He glanced in Iron Siaka's direction; she was personally apologizing to the Perfect, who stood with a raised eyebrow, staring at the vagabonds she had brought straggling into the palace.  "But mortals have no rights in Yu-Shan except during the Carnival of Meeting, and Heaven is not the utopia you seem to be expecting.  Your friends are there on your sufferance and under your responsibility.  If they make any kind of trouble--and be sure that some gods will argue they are making trouble just by being there--you can be audited.  That mean anything to you?"

     Anya took a satisfyingly deep breath, her eyes wide, and nodded.  "Audits are horrible.  I've killed more men than I've inflicted audits on.  It's a fate worse than death."

     Crimson tried not to look dumbfounded by this.  It was an appropriate level of respect, at least.  How had she inflicted audits on anyone, and did she really see them as worse than death?  Hmm.  Well, perhaps she had a point.  "You'll be assigned quarters--I would suspect fairly nice quarters for a new Exalt, and we'll get to that later--to which I suggest you should confine your friends until it's time to leave.  If you've got to do this, I advise you to find a nice place for them to live in Creation and send them there.  Permanently.  There are more reasons, and we'll discuss them in private.  Any questions?"

     "What about Xander?"  Anya's expression was difficult to read.  She clearly wanted this "Xander" with her, and yet....

     Crimson dropped his voice to a whisper.  "If your boyfriend really is a Solar Exalt, then he does have rights in Yu-Shan.  That does _not_ mean it is a good idea to bring him there.  The gods likely would welcome him, by and large.  Most Sidereals will not.  And that's all I'm going to say on the subject right now.  Same goes for Fred and especially this Buffy...whatever she is."  Truthfully he suspected this "Infernal Exalt" was probably an akuma and would have to be put down at the earliest opportunity.  Of course, if she were a _Solar_ akuma, that might be hard enough to take some time.  "Also, I have to advise you to leave these two...'vanpires'...here.  Demons are not allowed, to put it bluntly.  If any demons have ever entered Yu-Shan, other than perhaps caged and chained, I'm not aware of it."

     "I'll talk it over with them," Anya said truculently.  "I wouldn't want them hurt."  She had hinted at having been a demon herself for most of her lifespan, which might be technically feasible but sounded terribly unlikely.  In any case, she was definitely human now, or she couldn't have Exalted.  Whatever the truth, he intended to keep an eye on her.  If she was demon-blooded or some such, then she might be a Malfean plot despite her Exaltation.

     Iron Siaka strolled back over.  "We had to pay a fine.  Mortal money and all that.  The bigwigs will probably cover our asses this time.  Let's just hope we don't have any gods filing charges on the other side.  They coming with?"

     "Leaving the demons behind," Crimson said firmly.  "She insists on the others, though."

     "You told her the score, then?"  Crimson gave her a shrug and a nod.  "Up to her, I guess.  Anya, we're ready to go.  Are you?"

     "I need to talk to Angel and Spike first."

     "Go on, then."  Iron Siaka gave her a gentle push on the shoulder.  Hopefully she wasn't sweet on this one.  Anya seemed especially devoted to her boyfriend, to the point he couldn't imagine her in the Bronze Faction.  "You explain to her about our arcane fate yet?"

     "Couldn't get her far enough away from her friends."  Well, sooner or later there was a good chance that would take care of itself.  Alternately, if she got them set up somewhere she could use them as a base to start developing contacts.  "I hope she gets a handle on this quickly.  I don't really _want_ to see her audited.  The idea seems to terrify her, which is appropriate but...strange."

     "Yeah.  How the hell's she know what an audit is, anyway?"

     "You've got me."

 *****

     The creature in front of Fred resembled an insect in most respects, but it had ten legs.  That was clue enough, though it didn't tell her what kind of being it was.  A mutated creature from the Wyld, a demon, even a god.  She'd been forced to retreat and look for information.

     It lifted its front legs, revealing a pair of nasty blades.  There was no possible way she could do battle with it in this form.  Therefore she had no intention of doing so.  Instead, she placed a tiny slip of paper on the floor in front of it.  The being she faced was called a sesselja, and it craved impure substances.  They weren't really ideal guardians, but in a tiny space like this not much else would fit, and anyway, being this small made you vulnerable.

     The demon touched the paper, tasting it and the alcohol it had been impregnated with.  Fred held up a second slip.  This one was dry, but she had written in tiny letters in Old Realm: "I have more."

     The sesselja had been bound to stay here and guard.  It only skittered back and forth.  Fred stayed carefully out of its way.  Apparently, though, alcohol qualified as an impure substance.   She really did have a bottle of beer stashed outside.

     Now...and here came the ironic part...she had to tempt it.

 *****

     Rupert Giles was beginning to recognize that something was up.

     Of course, he was aware of the grandeur that was Yu-Shan.  The sparkling palaces that actually did almost touch the sky, the flying vehicle pods, the radiance of many of the inhabitants, the glimmering canals--who could fail to miss these things?  It certainly made him wonder why no texts spoke of this.  Judging by the attitudes of the Exalted who had come to collect Anya, this heaven was no less a threat than hell.

     He was a practical man, however, and he remembered to keep his eye on the small details.  The same Celestial lions that had growled just at seeing Spike and Angel down the long hallway had sniffed curiously and uncomfortably at Dawn.  Dawn had hidden from the Maiden instead of trying to fight, even when Cordelia had been emptying Wesley's pistol and Anya had risked her life.  He also knew that Dawn--human though she appeared--was a being created from a very inhuman power.  She claimed to have no special abilities once the portal had been closed, yet she had been able to help Fred work out how to open the portal that led them here to find Buffy.

     Was it possible that she was lying?  Or even that she had powers she had forgotten when her current identity had been forged?  Their own memories could not be presumed reliable around her.  Of course, she had never tried to harm any of them.  As far as he remembered, at least.

     And if she wasn't truly human...what was she?  Glory had been a god--supposedly, at least.  But they had already confronted the idea that texts from home might not define a god in the same way as the people of Creation did.  Few of the deities that surrounded them were anywhere near the almighty power Glorificus had claimed to have at home.  Was she like this world's sun and moon?  Or could she be an aspect of one of these Primordials?  Or something alien to Creation entirely?  And in any case, that didn't really answer his questions about Dawn; Glory could be a god who had found a way to bind a demon, or vice versa, or none of the above.

     It was so easy to forget all this, because everything she had been had been subsumed into the role of being Buffy's sister.  They could have encountered her many times before, for all he knew, and they'd never have connected her with those meetings, if they remembered them at all.

     Iron Siaka interrupted his reverie as a tiny winged infant--a cherub?  was this a joke?--flitted away from her.  "This way, please.  Anya, the Bier of Endings officials have arranged this apartment for you temporarily.  It's a bit larger than average for a new Sidereal and even at that, I'm afraid it may be cramped for this number of guests.  This is also not the best of neighborhoods; we're fairly near a slum, actually."

     "A slum?  In heaven?  How's that work?"  Gunn sounded annoyed but not all that surprised.  Giles looked around and abruptly realized what he had missed in his surroundings.  The glorious spires were elegantly built, but here trash had been thrown into the streets and unrestrained vines had overgrown much of the lower levels.

     Crimson shrugged.  "Lot of unemployed gods these days.  The things they were gods of got destroyed in one of quite a few disasters.  Lot of those these days too.  Iron Siaka's got a point, though.  I wouldn't go running around the streets if I were you."

     "Yeah, yeah, been there, done that."  Gunn affected a world-weary look, but Giles saw him mouth something like "God slums?" in disbelief.  Giles wondered idly if Yu-Shan might be more appropriately classified as a hell-dimension as well.  Many demon lords lived well, surrounded by suffering inferiors.

     "Have you now?"  Crimson fingered one of his swords irritably.  "I'm sure the slums where you come from are very dangerous, but I doubt they contain any celestial deities.  Even some very powerful beings have fallen on hard times here, though admittedly most homeless gods aren't much tougher than, say, a blood ape.  Good luck taking on a blood ape by yourself, mortal.  It's been done successfully, of course; I can find you epics on the subject, and a few of those are even true."

     Wesley leaned over to whisper in his ear.  "I wonder, is this because Anya is new, or is it to keep us from wandering about?"  Giles just shook his head irritably.  They could discuss that once their keepers were gone.  Probably both were true.

     He'd missed Anya asking something about the apartments.  "Actually this building is mostly vacant," Iron Siaka said.  "I'm kinda sorry about that.  Lot of the place is just boarded up.  I guess you could talk to the manager, if you can find her."  She hastily added, "This way.  Anya, you've got a meeting with your leader in about an hour or so.  It'll take that long to get across town, so please let's get your friends settled."

     Anya spread her hands.  "Well, what're we waiting for?"

 *****

     Abruptly Fred hit a wall.  The air duct she was following went no further.  Reluctantly, she backtracked and found another going in the same general direction, but this one, too, came to an end.  There was only one thing for it, she realized; she was going to have to exit into the corridor.

     A vent allowed her to crawl out into an immense ampitheater.  No, she'd just been in the ducts too long.  This was nothing more than the terminus of a hallway.  Being a cockroach was starting to get to her.  She couldn't get a good image of the doorway that led beyond here with her compound eyes.  Hugging the walls, she crawled right up to the door before reverting.  Inside her exoskeleton, flesh ballooned, stretching the segments until, a little painfully, they popped free.  The good part about it was, her clothes helpfully materialized around her; they counted as part of her shape.  Poor Buffy.

     The door had no handle; it looked as if it was meant to slide into the walls.  Set in the right panel of it was a keypad with the barely familiar sigils of this world's alphabet.  Whatever magic had made them able to understand the most common language of Creation had kept them literate as well, but that didn't make the symbols look any less weird.  Anyway, its importance was obvious--she needed a passcode.  Given the security she'd faced so far just in the air ducts, there was probably a trap if she failed even once.

     Fred released a small sigh.  Back to the starting point again.  Some of the security would stay shut off, but she already knew at least a third of the traps would be reset, or otherwise still need to be bypassed.

     It had to be done.

 *****

     "So is someone trying to kill me?"

     Cyan glanced at Buffy and snickered.  "You're in Malfeas, Buffy.  Someone is almost certainly trying to kill you.  But as regards your acrobatic performance this morning, I can think of no sorcery that could command the Arrow Wind.  Doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but binding behemoths is extremely difficult, and Kalmanka lacks the sapience to be bargained with.  If she's intelligent at all, it's on the level of an insect, I'd say."

     "So it was a freak accident."  Ugh.  Buffy hated those.

     "Not so freakish, Buffy, aside from its location.  You have to understand that while we may share in its rule, this _is_ hell.  The five Malfean winds, the Ebon Dragon's shadow, Hegra's psychedelic rain, even the collapse of Malfeas' layers--these are facts of life here.  And not even the Yozis can do much more than try to lure Adorjan's wind-daughters away from places they aren't wanted, for the reasons I mentioned earlier."  Cyan's calm was infuriating.  Of course, everything was infuriating to Buffy lately.  Something was definitely wrong with her.

     "All right.  Why'd you ask me to visit, then?"

     "Two reasons.  The first...does this aura mean anything to you?  The image was passed to me by a neomah--not one of yours, mind, one of mine.  I think it was recorded by the Conventicle itself, which you'll remember is part of Malfeas' body just like all the rest."  She handed Buffy a sheet of paper depicting her stand against Kalmanka in the Conventicle doorway.  Buffy remembered that stormcloud aura.

     "Never seen it before that.  I...it's part of my anima banner, right?"  She'd never used her powers to the extent of manifesting it before coming here.  Maybe it was somehow connected to her problems?

     "When you expend enough essence, sometimes the anima becomes what's known as 'iconic'.  For us, that normally means we manifest the image of a demon, typically the one that carried our Exaltations.  Occasionally it's another image of the Yozi who created that type of demon--this could in principle be Adorjan's winds, or Cecelyne's sandstorm.  But that doesn't look quite right either.   I'm wondering if it means anything to you."

     Buffy shook her head.  "Nothing I recognize.  There was this one time I went on a sort of vision quest, and I saw a big cat.  Something in my anima made a cat noise, or what sounded like one."

     Cyan put the paper down without changing her expression.  "I'm afraid that doesn't sound familiar.  Sorry to bother you about it.  Perhaps the Exaltation you carry was last touched by its demon so long ago that its form has been lost.  Second matter:  I have an intellectual question for you, part of your training.  The best information we have suggests that even in the First Age, time travel was considered impossible, and travel to new, unknown worlds nearly so.  Where do you think you come from?"

     Buffy sat down without asking for permission.  She needed to destress, and Cyan never seemed to mind.  "The longer I'm here, the more certain I am that I'm from your future.  Didn't you say that possibility was sort of a minor thing when it came to the Exalted?"

     "Yes...but there was the impossible, and then there was the impossible.  Even the ancient Solars never discovered some things--time travel, resurrecting the dead, controlling where an Exaltation went except in the most rudimentary sense."  Cyan spread her hands.  "So, if you came from the future...tell me how you think you got here.  Wait, let me help by rephrasing that: you want to go home, I expect.  To escape Creation and get back.  The first thing you need to know to do that is where home is."

     "I don't--"  Actually, that seemed to help a lot.  "Huh.  Well, I can tell you where I'd go if I wanted to find the future.  Into the Wyld."

     "The Wyld?  Seriously?"

     "If the Wyld contains all possibility, the way the texts you gave me say, then all of history has to be there.  HIstory's possible, right?  So every possible future and every possible past ought to be somewhere in the Wyld."  That hadn't even made sense to her until she said it, but then it had just spilled out.

     "Do you think you can find the right one?  Will what you do here change it?"

     That was more of a problem.  Buffy put her elbows on the table and her jaw on her fists and thought.  "Um.  I don't think it will.  At least, not in terms of getting back.  Either we're still connected to our own future, or...and maybe this is if we change things too much...we're not connected to any particular future and we'll just end up wandering.  There ought to be some kind of a link.  I'll have to think about it some more.  Maybe Dawn could help.  She was the Key, after all."  She'd never mentioned that before.  Cyan sat up straight.  "It's a long story.  I'll tell you about it later."

     "Buffy..."  Suddenly she seemed to have piqued the older woman's interest.

     "I said later, Cyan.  Please.  I need to go think."  Something about Dawn.  The pounding in her head....  She needed to talk to her friends.  _No friends._   Yes, yes, she did have friends!  Damn it, why was that bothering her now?  She'd beaten the spirit of the First Slayer and hadn't been bothered by her since.

      _No friends.  No sister.  Hunt.  Hurt.  Kill._   Cyan was staring at her.  Had she spoken out loud?  "Cyan...I need to get out of here for a little while.  Let me go.  Now."  Dawn _was_ her sister, no matter how she'd come by her.  She was!  "I think I need to go kill something."  _Hurt something.  Make it suffer before it dies._

     This wasn't right.  She didn't hear voices like this.  Sometimes, every now and then, she knew things.  She remembered things from previous Slayers.  But she didn't hear the First Slayer's voice in her head.  If she had always been there, if she was waking up...why now?

     Cyan nodded at the door, and Buffy slammed it open and ran.

 *****

     Dawn Summers was surrounded by friends, but she had never felt more alone.  Anya's heavenly apartments were packed with every last human member of the Scoobies and Fang Gang who hadn't gotten spirited away.  There were lots of comfy couches and seats--quite dusty, and one moldy one that had been shoved out to the street.  There was a fridge with some basic food already stashed inside--not nearly enough.  There was indoor plumbing, and a toilet!  She could have cried for that.

     "--can't believe they want us to stay cooped up in here."  Cordelia was still freaking out about the neighborhood, and the size of the seven-room apartment.

     "I don't see why we can't open up those boarded-up areas and see if they're livable," Gunn suggested.  "I've lived in worse spots than that, even if they've got water damage or something."'

     She ignored them.  They were both missing the point: they weren't wanted here.  Not that it was really any safer to be here than out in the desert.  Homeless _gods_.  What kind of a place was this, anyway?  Gangs of roving _gods_.  Yeah, some heaven.  She wanted to go home.  The little tug that told her what direction home was in had vanished when they went through the gates.  At least she had felt the gates as she passed through them, and thought she would know if she ran across another.

     "--think we can negotiate something with the local deities," Wesley suggested to Mr. Giles, who scoffed.

     "All our Watchers' Council pacts are essentially null and void, Wesley, and we have nothing to offer them."

     "As a matter of fact we do," Wes insisted.  "We have access to Anya."

     "Are you seriously suggesting we rent out Anya's _time_?  We don't even know what kind of schedule she'll be required to keep!"  Mr. Giles took off his glasses.  If he was cleaning them over Wesley's ideas, he must be outright pissed.

     Not that that tingle was very helpful.  It hadn't pointed to the dimensional crack they'd squeezed through even right after they arrived.  Home felt like it was elsewhere, like it was somewhere _here_ , and there was no way that could be right.

     She was never going to find out what it was that was calling her, not cooped up in here.  Not just in this apartment.  In Yu-Shan.  In this stupid gilded fake heaven where gods lived in cardboard boxes on the streets.  Everyone was still arguing.

     "Going to the bathroom," Dawn called out--they had had to work out a rotation--and left the room.  Only Cordy even noticed.

     She slipped out the front door.

 *****

     Three passcoded doors.  Another dozen grids.  Two more bug demons and a puddle of living acid.  They were starting to run together, and that was very, very bad.  Fred kept having to go back, to find a solution to a puzzle deeper and deeper in the corridor.  Three more dead bugs, almost certainly previous attempts at what she was doing.

     The only good thing about it was that the need to return kept her at other kinds of work, and in touch with her mentors.  She had a dozen working Essence cannons now, and had set some pelagothropes--the lower-class, human-looking citizens--to fixing some of the simpler problems and mounting cannons on the hull.  There was only one more problem she still hadn't figured out how to handle: bringing in Gavrane Tomazri.  She had no idea how to approach him, or how to get him here to help her once she had him on board--so to speak.

     Another door.  Fred examined the keyboard one last time and tapped in the seemingly random sequence of symbols.  She'd had to work this one out by shrinking down to bug size and examining the individual keys for wear and tear.  Luckily the ancient Solar aesthetic didn't seem to have run to touchscreens.

     The door recessed slightly and slid aside, opening on a great circular chamber.  For a moment Fred thought she was a cockroach again and had forgotten she was inside the vent.  But this room held seats and rails and all manner of dormant screens.  "Captain on the bridge," she murmured to herself.  Only she wasn't the captain, she was the Klingon intruder.  At least there were no redshirts armed with phasers.

     "How very, very wrong you are."  With a little shriek, she spun, seizing a power tool from her belt.

     Sage of the Depths had followed her.

 *****

     On the Hellmouth, there were demons and there was the Slayer.  She hunted them.  She killed them.  End of story.  Not really end of story, though.  She kept them from overrunning the world.  She thwarted their plans.  She kept them penned up.  Buffy wasn't on the Hellmouth now.  She wasn't in her world at all.  She was in a hell dimension called Malfeas.  Stumbling through the streets of the Conventicle, in the entertainment district now.

     Somewhere in those confused thoughts there had to be an answer.  Was the demon that had carried her Exaltation waking up because it was home?  No, the others would know about that if it was the issue.  Her thoughts just kept spinning round and round.  _Hurt them.  Keep them down.  Make them suffer forever._

     It made no sense.  Granted that the Yozis were insane, they still wanted out.  In fact, they believed she was the one who would free them.  How could they have loaded her down with the desire to hurt demons and keep them pinned in?  Just to hurt _her_?  But they had no idea who she was or where she'd come from, so how could they have set this up?

     The Yozis wanted to control her.  They were trying to keep her here in Malfeas.  Or even just in Creation.  She had to get out.  She had to get out before this ate her alive.  Think, damnit!  Putting it to herself that way clarified things, but not as much as she would have wanted.

     She kept passing demons.  Trapped in here with her.  _They deserve it.  Hateful, disgusting monsters.  Betrayers.  Keep them here, make sure they rot, make sure they hurt._   The answer was in there, somewhere.  But it was mad rambling.  That didn't sound like the police, or the government, or even an army.

     Her Exaltation didn't come from now.  Or, it did, sort of, but a lot had happened between now and her.  Things had changed.  If she was fated to let the Yozis out, it hadn't happened.  Maybe it was still in her future.  But if she disappeared first, if she left them here now, they would feel...betrayed.  Cheated.  As if she were ungrateful for her power, not that she wanted it from them.  So they had taken it...maybe had set it up to be The Slayer...knowing her future.  Knowing that she would come back one day and fail them.

     She was close to the answer, circling it.  So close.  Time travel.  She would have thought that over such a long time, so many thousands of years, nothing she did would matter.  That it might as well have been a separate dimension, even if it wasn't really.  No one knew her here, not even the Yozis.  But the Yozis _would_.  Punishing her would do nothing to help them.  It was hurting them this very moment.  But they were nothing like humans, and they were insane, and they didn't _care_.

     That wasn't quite right either.  Only one of the Yozis had handled her Exaltation.  She still needed to know which one had felt betrayed enough to screw her over--to screw _itself_ over to punish her forever.

     "Buffy?"

     "Aphrodisia."   She'd made it to her townhouse.  Somehow.  _Hurt her, make her pay, make her suffer, now, forever, make her live in_ agony _before she dies.  Make her know she will never, never, nevernevernever be free._   "Don't...don't be here.  Go.  Get away from me.  Please."  Buffy flailed a hand at her, trying to wave her away.

     "Mistress, are you all right?"  Instead of leaving as ordered, Aphrodisia stepped closer.  Because Buffy had made her _care_ , if only a little.  Had treated her as a person instead of a thing to be used.  _Use her.  Use her up.  Take as long as you want.  It's what she's for.  It's all she's for._   "Mistress, please tell me wha--"

     Buffy had her on the floor, by the throat.  "Just shut up!  Shut up shut up!  You're making me crazy just leave me alone!"  She only needed one hand.  The other fist rose up, feeling entirely out of her control.  This...this thing had made her believe it was a person.  Had made her like it, have fun with it, _help_ it.  Just like...just like...

     Just like Dawn.

     Buffy's hand unclenched, and she stood..  "Go.  I'm sorry."  The chaotic swirl of emotion in her head had frozen in an instant into perfect clarity.  It wasn't Aphrodisia she wanted to hurt.

     It was the thing pretending to be her sister.


	13. Nothing On Earth Is His Equal

Sage of the Depths gestured to the nearest seat.  "Go on.  We may as well discuss what you're doing."  He took a seat beside the command chair himself.  For the first time, Fred noticed the immense trident that rested on the throne next to him.   "You're not the first."

 

"You've had other apprentices try to free the Traitorspawn."  The Sage nodded gravely.  "And you've killed them all."

 

"Hardly.  Three of those I sent this way perished, true.  The other two reached this point and saw what I am about to explain to you.  I bore them no ill will.  The fourth corpse, whom you no doubt saw, was apprenticed to Swims-in-Shadow, who may in fact have killed him; I'm afraid I don't know his story."

 

Fred decided to take the seat she'd been offered.  "Why?  Were you lying about hating the Traitorspawn?"

 

"Not the first time.  Five hundred years ago, the first of the apprentices to come this way confronted me with what he saw as my hypocrisy, and eventually convinced me that he was correct.  I told him that if he could find a way to free the captives I would not hinder him.  He came here, just as you did.  Since then I have used this as my testing for any apprentice who thinks as you do--not only the problem-solving, but the strength of will it requires to defy me, and by extension Leviathan."

 

"But they're still slaves."  Fred looked around the room, searching for more traps.

 

"No one has passed the final hurdle.  To take command of Luthe's major systems, one must sit in the command chair, and Leviathan placed Islebreaker there to prevent that from happening."  A wave of his arm at the trident.  "None save Leviathan, or the reincarnation of his Solar mentor, Kendik Arkadi, can hope to move it from where it rests.  And before you ask, no, it will not suffice to take on a tiny form and mount the chair to sit next to Islebreaker; the consciousness uplink requires your head to occupy a portion of the space currently taken by the weapon.  Nor can any heavy equipment that reasonably can be moved to or assembled in this space shift it.  In principle, a truly mighty warrior could heave Islebreaker aside by pure strength, but it would take a Primordial behemoth or some such to succeed at a task like that.  If you wish to solve this last problem, I will not hinder you, but even I have thought of no method that could lead to success."  He leaned forward, favoring her with a sad expression.  "Do you see?"

 

"I see you gave up."  She pulled her knees up into the chair and wrapped her arms around them.

 

"Not gave up, no.  But I have seen no one I think can defeat the last puzzle in all this time.  And, with respect, my clever student, that includes you."  He laid a hand on her shoulder.  "I can declare your trials complete at this point, if you like.  You may stay here and learn my lore, or go out into the world and declare your own protectorate wherever you like.  I will remain in touch in any case.  You are not my best student ever, but you are exceptional."

 

"What if I said I'm not leaving till the job is done?"  Fred found that she was fidgeting with her hair and forced herself to stop.

 

"That, too, is your right.  I have told you the central point of the Silver Way, have I not?"

 

Fred gave him her best solemn nod.  It felt absurd, the action of a little girl putting on her parents' clothes.  "Defend what is yours."

 

"If you would protect those known as Traitorspawn, if you would declare them yours, then you may challenge even great Leviathan himself."  Sage of the Depths bent down to look into her eyes; he was taller than she had realized at first.  "I certainly would not advise such a course of action, but you must do what is right in your own heart.  That is also part of being a Lunar."

 

"Leviathan says Luthe is his territory, but you told me he hasn't come inside in a millennium."  The Sage raised a bare brow at the fire in her words, but waited patiently for her to finish.  "He says these people are his to protect, but he leaves the 'Traitorspawn' to be slaves.  They're _not_ his, and they're not part of Luthe, not really.  If he wants the rest, he can have them.  I don't care if he's a thousand years old, or a thousand to the thousandth.  I'll beat him or die trying."

 

The Sage of the Depths heaved a great sigh.  "You know it will almost certainly be the latter.  I would regret that, my student."

 

"I know."

 

**Chapter 13-Nothing On Earth Is His Equal**

Gavrane Tomazri looked up from clearing trash to find a shark-man standing over him.  "Traitorspawn," the creature said harshly.  "Come with me."

 

If he started the fight here, others would die in the brawl.  He could wait a little longer, till they reached the prison.  He would fail, as all the others had failed before him.  One day their deliverer would arise.  With sorrow, Tomazri accepted that it would not be him.

 

They led him down winding side streets and into a well-maintained chamber, a room of shining silver metal.  Only one space in it was not pristine--the floor where he would be executed.  That space was kept ritually dirty, so that none could ever doubt the bloodguilt of Traitorspawn.  Guards waited there for him, one to either side, and an executioner.  No captive escaped this place.

 

"Look at me," a voice said.  He did not move until a tentacle pad fastened on his head and pulled it back.  "I said look.  Gavrane Tomazri, you stand accused of heresy and treason, like all your kind.  Clemency has been shown in allowing you to live to adulthood, but that mercy has run out."

 

Strange.  Usually this part was carried out by sharkfolk.

"We will be vindicated," he proclaimed, "one day."

 

"Yes," said the squidwoman.  "Today."  And in a flurry of motion she slammed the guards to the floor.  "Come with me if you want to live."  She turned her back on him and ran for the door.

 

Was she mad?  He raced after her.  He could strike her down from behind.  "Why would you help me?"

 

"Because you need it," she said, bluntly.  "I'm Winifred Burkle, and I've been where you are.  I've been made to serve inhuman masters, until finally one day someone came and set my people free.  I'm just payin' it forward."

 

"But you're Scionborn," Tomazri protested.

 

"Nope.  I'm from Texas, actually.  Long story, no time to tell it now.  I can't get you to the command deck right now.  Too many traps to bypass, and they'll be looking for you soon anyway."  She hesitated at a door.  "I need you outside."

 

"Outside?  But I'll--"  He feigned horror.

 

"Don't play dumb," Burkle said sternly.  "I want to help you.  I know you can live underwater.  If you run low on time, get in the airlock and signal me, but hopefully it won't be too long."

 

"I can breathe underwater for a day at a time," he found himself explaining.  "Longer, if I expend more essence on it."

 

"Good," she said.  "We'll take as few days as we can."  Burkle pinned something to his collar.  "Comm unit.  Press the button to talk to me.  I need to know what you can do, and there's no more time in here."

 

*****

 

"I don't understand what you're planning," the Sage said.

 

Fred nodded.  "I don't think you'll betray me, but I can't take the risk.  Leviathan will be hard enough to take on by himself.  You said he can breathe water, not just hold his breath like a whale?"

 

"Yes, for a time.  It costs him energy, but not in any large amounts.  If you mean to attack him directly, I'm not sure you understand how powerful he is--"

 

"He won't be breathing it when he drops by, then?"  Where was she going with this?

 

"No.  More than likely he will not.  But he will surely begin using that power as soon as he feels he needs it.  You must realize that he is a Full Moon.  He is at the peak of his strength, and you--"

 

"I'm a Full Moon too, for another couple of days.  Then I'm a Changing Moon.  I'll pick the right moment to attack, wait if I think I should.  He's not the greatest of intellects, then?"  She scribbled down another note on the wall.

 

"He has a powerful strategic mind.  No, he is no savant, but what use is that to you?"

 

"I _am_ a savant, Sage, just like you.  We can't outfight him face to face, but i suspect the two of us together can take him out.  You've told me a lot about what he can do.  If it's not everything, tell me the rest.  Intellectually first."

 

"Hmm.  Perhaps you have a point.  Leviathan has certain limited mental powers, but between the two of us we may well be more than his equal.  You lack my experience and my advanced magics, but you do have the knowledge of another age or world."  Fred began to take more notes.  On the walls.  Sage of the Depths sighed and continued.  "He is no creative genius, though he does have the capacity to expand his intellect beyond human limits.  By far his strengths lie in his physical prowess--vastly enhanced by his magics, to be sure, but blunt and straightforward...."

 

As he went on, Fred began to smile.  It was not the kind of smile he expected from an effete city-dweller; it held their kind of intelligence, but mixed with a feral cunning.  It was a No-Moon's smile, and he had seen it many times.  And yet to see it on this skinny little city girl...Sage of the Depths felt a tiny flicker of fear.

 

It made him proud.

 

*****

 

In all the oceans of the world there was none like him.  Leviathan his name, the great whale, bulk vaster than any ship that now plied the waters.  Many primordial behemoths could not match his strength.  Third-Circle demons were not so hard to kill.

 

His hide was unbreakable steel.  His muscles were engines of destruction.  He shot forward like lightning through the water.  His Essential core churned like a thousand fusion reactors.

 

Leviathan sailed past Luthe with one thrash of his massive tail, his infallible wake churning the water as he passed.  He sensed nothing amiss.  Nothing there offered him the slightest threat any longer.  His vengeance, his duty, proceeded apace, but none who could challenge him would ever arise there.  One day his people might rise from the seas and help wash away the treacherous Usurpers and their Realm, but that day was not yet.

 

There was none like him, and if any began to rise to challenge him, his allies, Swims-in-Shadow and the Sage of the Deeps, would ensure that there remained none like him.  Though in truth, he needed them not.  If one day someone rose so high, he would meet them proudly, forehead to forehead, and he would crush them into the abyssal mud.

 

He was Leviathan, Admiral of the Western Sea.  He was the unconquerable avatar of that sea, which would roll on for thousands of unnumbered years.  He was unbreakable, invincible, a fitting nemesis for Primordials.   There was none like him.  None like him.

 

  Not one.

 

*****

 

"It's about time," Fred said at last, and Sage of the Depths shook his head.

 

"If you are planning to engage Leviathan directly with what we have, I must warn you that this is not enough.  You will have to rewire the Essence cannons and lightning ballistae you repaired so that you can fire them at will.  Only a percentage of the automated defenses will fire without authorization, perhaps none given that it is Leviathan who we will be fighting.  And much of the ship's armament is still buried.  I would suggest you remove and transfer some of the weapons that are pointing in inconvenient directions, and rewire them so that you can fire them personally."

 

"He'll notice that," Fred pointed out.  "He'll attack while we're busy."

 

"Hmm."  There was some merit in that.  Leviathan would surely notice unusual activity around the weapons.  But what other choice did they have?  That was yet another reason to persuade her to give up.  He put a bony hand on the auxiliary weapons controls.  "Perhaps we can arrange a distraction."

 

Fred fiddled with her hair.  She'd resisted his suggestion to cut it off.  "Maybe.  That's the communications console, right?  Can he pick that up?"

 

"He can.  He has specialized powers that enable him to speak to the ship using it."

 

Fred strolled over to it casually and flicked it on.  "Huh.  What kind of a distraction you think we might need?"  He opened his mouth to make a suggestion, and Fred keyed the microphone.  "Hey!  Leviathan!  We're in your command center freein' your slaves!"

 

What?  No!  The girl had gone mad!  The Sage lunged at her, slamming her away from the controls.  She was no match for him; how could she think to go up against an admiral of the Old Realm?  He had warned her of this, the same malady that caused even experienced Lunars to lose their minds.  "Fred, what have you done?"

 

"What I had to do to win."

 

A great booming voice filled the command center, a force of utter calm and absolute fury.  " **Who are you?  Who dares suggest I hold slaves?  Who dares?** "

 

Fred squirmed free of the Sage's grip.  He could have tried to hold her by changing form, but she likely could have slipped away all the same.  "Winifred Burkle," she said into the microphone.  "Physicist, survivor type, and newbie Lunar extraordinaire.  How's that combo sound?  Better go get your friends if you mean to come after me, because otherwise I'm kicking ass and taking names."

 

Leviathan's laughter shook the hull.  " **You think to manipulate me, girl?  I know you are Sage of the Depths' student.  He will deal with you, upstart.  You do not have the power to truly challenge me.  Come back and face me when you have a few centuries under your belt.** "

 

"He's right here," Fred shouted.  The Sage started to lunge at her, then hesitated.  _Did_ she have some insight he wasn't seeing?  "He's on my side.  Betraying you and your apartheid regime."

 

" **Sage.  You stand with this little fool?** "  There was no use denying it now, not without stopping her at once.  He could do that.  He could stop her easily.  And betray everything he had told her.  " **This is treason, Sage.  This is no mere challenge.  I will destroy both of you.  I need no aid in handling the likes of you.  I will boast of this to Swims-In-Shadow when I have finished.  Die now.** "

 

"I grin at thee, thou grinning whale," Fred snarled, and dropped the microphone.

 

"Fred," the Sage begged as the comm shut down.  "What have you done to me?  Can you not see what folly this is?"

 

On the viewscreen, the great lazy bulk of Leviathan came around, an orca the size of a blue whale.  A leviathan indeed, an immense predator capable of swallowing sharks whole.  Mottled black and white and silver that shone in Luthe's ancient running lights, he flicked his tail and accelerated toward them.  He would close the distance in moments only.

 

Fred offered him no answers, only sat down in one of the restraint-guarded chairs near the unusuable throne of the captain, still occupied by Islebreaker as it had been these thousand years.  None could shift it so much as a hair.  "Brace for impact," she said.

 

Why?  Why expect to live through the first minute of this?  What could this child have seen that he had failed to recognize?  For that reason, and that reason only, he settled himself into a chair.  Perhaps he would live long enough to see.

Leviathan's great head bore down on the viewscreen, filling it.  And then he turned upward.  Not a reprieve.  His immense flukes swung around, vast contrails of silver Essence boiling in their wake.

The Sage dared to look at the actual windows and saw only darkness as the tail blocked out the lights beyond.

 

Impact.  The orichalcum armor of the hull held, though it groaned like a dying behemoth, though the seams between plates crumpled slightly and split open in places.  Sparks flew from consoles despite a dozen safety breakers as water sprayed through a crack to port and the immense shockwave struck them in a blinding flash of Essence.  The unstoppable force of Leviathan's crushing blow shattered panels and knocked them from their seats in spite of the restraints.  Fred's notebooks sailed lazily through the air, but pens and tools and the components of a half-repaired console flew with such force that they embedded themselves into the bulkheads.  Everything they had in progress, maybe all that they had done, was destroyed as Leviathan did no more than flick his tail at them.

 

And the weapon that only Leviathan could move was hurled across the room.

 

*****

 

Gavrane Tomazri was shocked to realize how shocked he was.

 

He had always hated the Great Whale God of the stories.  He had always hated Luthe.  Luthe was a prison camp.  Luthe was the trap he would die in.  Luthe was the place of his parents' and his siblings' and all his people's suffering.  Now he saw it under attack, and expected to be overjoyed.

 

But as much as he hated it, it was also home.

 

Everyone he knew was there.  Leviathan's attack had been directed at the command center, but the command center was the city's core and apex.  And his family's prison was only a few levels down from it.  In striking there, Leviathan had hurt his entire people--had conceivably killed everyone he knew.

 

Only a heartbeat had passed.  Tomazri darted out from his place of concealment, anima raging, a great black cloud of swirling fury, water beneath the water, that was also an imperceptible speck as the vast bulk of the Great Whale God passed him by.  He drew back a fist that was but the size of a pebble and lashed out with it, his strike emblazoned with all the Essence he could draw, and no more than a pinprick at that.  He could not be sure Leviathan even felt the blow.

 

But the thrashing told him that Leviathan could feel his building-sized lungs fill with salt water.

 

Leviathan had no doubt fought great whales of every kind, siaka, giant squid.  In a thousand years he would still not have had such a force as that used against him.  It was in his power to render himself able to breathe water in as many ways as a human hand had fingers.  And yet, in the wake of his attack on Luthe, his Essence still unrecovered from that crushing blow, he was, if only for a moment, helpless to do so.

 

He had time.  He would not suffocate instantly.  But it is the instinct of every creature that breathes to continue doing so, and coughing great gouts of seawater into the sea, Leviathan let his instinct get the better of him.  His tail pumped, and Leviathan shot toward the surface.

 

Gavrane Tomazri dove toward home.

 

*****

 

The bones in Fred's left leg shattered as the hammer struck her in the shin.  Blood sprayed from her face, mingling with the incoming seawater and the glass of a dozen consoles.  She slammed bodily into the ceiling hard enough to black her out momentarily from the concussive shock to her whole frame, coming to on the floor. _...lay your hand on him...remember the battle..._  


 

Hands in front of her.  Pull.  Crawl.  Squirm across the deck.  She let her body go fluid, shifting, her bones melting away.  Should've done that before.  Scrabbling towards her goal, still keeping low lest more debris fly into her.  One hand...er, tentacle pad.  Captain's chair.  Empty.  She could do this.  _...from hell's heart I stab at thee..._  


 

Fred dragged herself up and into the chair that had been vacant for a thousand years.  Felt something immaterial squirm and pierce its way into her already reeling brain.  Blood trickled from her nose, her ears.  Not good.  Had to think.  Had to remember the plan.  **_Systems online, Amyana.  Towers of Azure waiting your command._**  


 

_...I want you to remember, Clark...in all the years to come...in your most private moments...I want you to remember...my hand...at your throat...I want...you to remember...the one man who beat you..._

 

No...too far ahead...page back.  It was there.  Had to remember.  Leviathan would be coming around ponderously, even with all his powers it must take time to turn through the water...Back up, Fred, no gloating yet.  Time for that later.

 

Another presence impinging on her consciousness.  No.  Hundreds.  Just below the limits of her perception.  Submotic transmission...flickers of energy...prayers.  Unreadable, and yet some tiny part of her knew what they must be saying, what anyone would have been saying.  _is it the end? have you come to save us? who are you?  please help don't let us die here like this save us whoever you are_  


 

_They are tiny and stupid and vicious...but please...listen to them...please...I am slow and dying...I need only...reach the sun._

 

**_Command recognized, Queen Amyana.  Note: we are under attack.  Initiating defense protocol.  Initiating launch protocol.  Initiating self-repair systems.  Sulfate of thanatol in reserve; do not release._ **

 

**_Surfacing._ **

_*****_

Spent, Gavrane Tomazri collapsed to the deck.  He had known he could never fight this battle alone.  And so he had retreated to the launch bay, seizing the airlock door as it ascended past him, seeking the still-undamaged fighting craft and warstriders that had waited there for a millennium.

 

For all that time, his people had treasured the hope of a savior arising from their people.  One, they needed one Dragon-Blood to draw the right Second Breath.  Only one.  But the Dragon-Blooded had never been meant to fight alone.  So now he was on his knees on the smooth metal floor, his Essence exhausted.

 

Those who had been chosen as leaders, who had received the secret training in the long nights aboard Luthe, they had fought their way here as the city-ship began to rise, an entourage of less-trained and untrained Traitorspawn surrounding them, risking death so they could live.  They had found him, and without him they now dashed for every craft they could reach, praying that they knew enough about their operation to pilot them.

 

He would return in person to the fight, but not yet.  He would find a source of Essence, somewhere on the ship.  In the armory, perhaps, if he could reach it.  But for now he was exhausted.  He raised the commlink to his lips.

 

"Ordering all unit commanders.  Attack pattern beta-three.  Strike his flanks.  Harry him.  Force him upward, but keep him in range of the main city guns.  Do not, I repeat, do not let him break away."

 

He had given them his all.  He had flooded their brains with all his power, had made them masters of tactics and strategy.  That was their birthright, the Dragon-Blooded: to fight together, to raise up the weak and make them strong, to be the scales of one dragon.  He had never been meant to fight alone.  And he did not need to.

 

Gavrane Tomazri rested on the floor a few more moments, just breathing.  For now he needed to do no more.  They were his limbs in this fight, as he had always meant for them to be.  He was in command, and this was not a struggle of one man against one man.

 

This was war.

 

*****

 

Someone was shaking her.

 

"Fred!  Winifred Burkle, you must stay awake!"  She forced her eyes open.  Sage of the Depths.  "Medical treatment is on its way.  Heal yourself if you can; the Traitorspawn have not been able to preserve much knowledge of First Age medicine, but they will help to the extent of their abilities."

 

**_Queen Amyana!  Please respond!  The entity attacking this vessel is Admiral Leviathan.  Hush, cawing birds!  What shall I do?_ **

 

She was not bleeding so badly as she had feared, but her head was stuffed full of cotton.  . _..any hope of subduing him is false...the mere sight of him is overpowering..._  


**_Amyana?  Must we retreat?_ **

 

No.  No, not that.  She had to clear her head somehow.  Focus on the battle.  Just the battle.  She flexed the same mental muscles she had used for the repairs, forced Essence through her brain, used it to think.  A power that she had used to make herself smarter than human was still enough to override the brain damage and make her a genius again, if only that.  She would heal, she realized, if she lived through the battle.

 

... _in that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish Leviathan.._.  "Towers of Azure, keep the main cannons on Leviathan.  He's gone mad.  He'll destroy us all rather than let the descendants of the Dragon-Blooded escape."  She turned her head ponderously.  "Sage...do you want to live through the day?"

 

"What?"  His beak clacked together in shock.  "I don't understand what you mean."

 

"What about your people, Sage?  The Scionborn, even the pelagothropes...they're out there fighting against the Traitorspawn.  Do you want this to be just a cycle of revenge?  Are you going to let them be slaughtered?  Or are you going to take a stand?"

 

"I don't understand, Winifred.  You want me to fight the Traitorspawn?  After we've come this far to free them?"  She must have him so off-balance.  Maybe it was the fizz in her brain, making her smarter, or maybe he was just disoriented at the inevitable finally coming true.

 

"No, Sage.  I've given my all.  Tomazri has given his all.  It's your turn.  I need you to fight Leviathan."

 

*****

 

Leviathan roared out his rage as he and the city breached together, spraying tons of water into the air, breathing deeply the sweet oxygen above the waves.  He would not risk holding his breath again, but for now he did not need his powers to breathe.

 

Essence in its purest form boiled the water around him, lines of liquid fire streaking from the city's main guns.  Fighter craft churned through the sea, loosing their fury.  There was no one to pilot the warstriders against him, though he was sure the secret Dragon-Blood and perhaps the Lunar betrayers would take them soon.  Leviathan shook off the blows of burning Essence.  He could not take this pounding forever, but he could take it for as long as he would need to.  He was invincible.  He was the Great Whale God, and no mere mortals could defeat him with stolen weapons.  Great plates of bone now armored his skin, shielding him against all but the most powerful attacks.  Even the city guns struggled to pierce them.

This battle might last for days.  But in the end he would be the victor.  He was always the victor.

 

Pumping his tail, Leviathan shot from the water like a shell from a cannon, and fell upon the tiny boats, shattering them, drowning the Traitorspawn who fell from them into the swirling, unending sea.

 

*****

 

"The source of the Essence readings is here, Dread Pirate Roberts."  Thousand-Faceted Nelumbo pointed to the map.  She could feel the roiling energies seething there, but she could not see how they could possibly reach the site in time, not in this primitive craft.  They would spend an hour traveling even if the wind held.

 

"Can you get us there?" The Dread Pirate asked, curiously.  "Maybe if you open the portal here and then there--"

 

"It doesn't work that way," she explained.  "The location can be changed, but it'll take days to reprogram.  We'd get there sooner just by sailing.  Can't you do something?"

 

"Me?"  The Dread Pirate's eyes widened as if she had bashed him on the head.  "What do you think I can do?"

 

"I don't know," Nelumbo said curtly.  "Are you a Solar or aren't you?"

 

*****

 

"I'm sorry, my lady," the litte dark-haired girl whispered.  "I don't know how to use these.  Please don't die."

 

  Fred had deactivated the security protocols long enough for the noncombatant Traitorspawn--she needed a new name for them; they weren't Dragon-Blooded as she kept thinking--pack the bridge, then closed the gates behind them.  The girl riffled through the medical packs, unable even to read the instructions.

 

Fred picked one up.  Symbols swam before her eyes and she forced them to stay still.  She wasn't dying here, not today.  "I'm...not planning to...little miss.  Thank you."  She patted the girl on the head.  "Soak the bandage in this bottle.  Then wrap it around my leg."  Her leg was still damaged even with no bones in it; broken bone had morphed into torn muscle.

 

She searched through the packs and found something like a headband with peculiar crystalline components.

 

"For...brain...trauma..."  Good.  That was good.  Suddenly she laughed.  "Apply directly...to the forehead."

 

*****

 

"This is beyond what I expected, Roberts," said Captain Redfang, "even from the likes of you."  A great aura of golden essence had gushed forth from Xander to surround the sails.  Even he wasn't sure what he was doing until the glow had begun to amplify the wind.  Somehow.  The ship was hurtling along at twice the speed it should have, and the battle was drawing closer.

 

Xander could see the city over the horizon now, a mountainous dome with a dozen spires jutting from its surface, shining a blue that was neither sea nor sky, but something in between.  And at the top, a brilliant crystalline window that glimmered in silvery light that came from something plainly not the sun.  High-tech watercraft shot in every direction, outracing his wooden ship.  Was he even going to be able to do anything here?

 

"Dragon-Blooded," Redfang said.  "The Realm...they must have found their way here somehow.  They're attacking the city."

 

Xander frowned, trying to work out what they were doing and why.  The beams of energy they fired were vanishing under the water, but were they aiming at the city's floating foundations or something else?

The ocean boiled suddenly in front of him as something immense shot towards the surface at an unbelieveable speed.  Nelumbo's lips parted in shock, and she breathed, "Lunar.  It's a Lunar."  A rubbery mass of black and white flesh and silvery metal erupted from beneath the surface, close enough to set Distant Obsidian Shores almost on end before it righted itself.  The immensely oversized orca plunged back into the water, narrowly missing most of the fighter craft as they nimbly dodged aside, but carrying at least two into the depths in its jaws.

 

"Leviathan," Xander said.  "They said..." Who had said it?  "...Fred would be with Leviathan.  Captain, get ready to attack the Dragon-Blooded vessels.  I don't know how much damage we can do, but we're going to hit 'em with whatever we've got."

 

*****

 

For the first time in centuries, the Sage of the Depths stepped out of Luthe on two feet.  Far below him, the battle raged unaltered, the Traitorspawn throwing everything they had at Leviathan, who shrugged it off like insects prickling at his unbreakable hide.  There was no sign of Swims-In-Shadow.  Had he forsaken his master, or his master him, or were they simply lucky enough to have struck when he was away on other business?  No matter.

 

The Sage spread his slender human hands, fingers outstretched, and began to work his will.  Darkness sprang up around him, a darkness limned in silver light.  Vast tentacles of shining shadow spread out, writhing across the great dome of the city.

 

This should only take one try.

 

*****

 

"Ready to fire," Captain Redfang reported.

 

Xander began to drop his hand, to signal the attack.

 

"Wait," Nelumbo said, seizing him by the arm.  "What's that?"

 

A great gaping hole of darkness appeared near the city's edge, dark tentacles reaching out of it to curl over the rooftops.  There in its midst a tiny figure stood, walking across the last few feet that separated him from the water.  Beside him, two phantom giants flickered into view, and they stepped forward ahead of him, plunging into the sea.

 

The ocean boiled even more fiercely than when Leviathan had first erupted from beneath the waves.  That had been in one spot; now a narrow line extended out from the city for hundreds of yards, nowhere near Xander's lone ship.  The figure hesitated, as if waiting for just the right moment.  Then it spread its hands, and the waters opened like a vast mouth, cataracts falling away forever beneath the city.

 

Luthe rested there unharmed, the city straddling the gap easily.  The Dragon-Blooded fleet avoided the crevasse without difficulty.  Rapidly the maw grew wider, with the immense mass of Leviathan caught in its center as certainly as a fly in a web.   He struggled, trying to turn as the water vanished from beneath his flukes.

 

The great whale fell into the abyss.

 

Xander whistled.  "Remind me not to piss that guy off."

 

And the walls of water slammed closed.

 

*****

 

The Sage of the Depths knew his mentor could not be so easily slain as that.  He could see Leviathan shining with a banner of his own, a behemoth of a whale surmounting him even as he plummeted into the great crevasse, and he felt the essence flows shift as Leviathan wrenched himself to one side, plunging into the water long before he could strike the sea bed.  It was inevitable.  But every mote Leviathan spent drew him closer to defeat.  If defeat could be had.

 

The Sage leapt into the water and began to grow.

 

*****

 

Gavrane Tomazri drained energy from the water and felt his strength return.  Vast booms and crashes from outside warned him that the battle still raged.  It was time to return to the fray.

 

He ran for the warstrider bays.  None of the more powerful ones were designed for him, which was hardly a surprise.  But to one side there sat a great bulk of armor made of black jade.  Laboriously he climbed into the cockpit, strapping himself in, and began to attune himself to it.  Long minutes passed while he waited, helpless, but at last he felt the controls respond.

 

Ensconced in gargantuan armor, Gavrane Tomazri raced for the locks.

 

*****

 

"I don't think Fred is with the whale," Xander said finally.  "That must have been the Sage, and he was the one teaching her."

 

"Are you sure?"  Nelumbo queried.  "We need to join battle soon, especially if we're going to fight that...that beast."  She sounded nervous, but not afraid.  Battle was surely something she engaged in fairly often.

 

"No," he said regretfully.  "I don't know how to tell for sure."

 

He was still hesitating when the whale breached again, wrapped in eight suckered arms the size of tree trunks.  Writhing, the wrestling monsters sent great fountains of spray into the air and rocked the sea with titanic waves.

 

Without warning a flailing tentacle swept him and Nelumbo from the deck.

 

*****

 

Fred was tired of waiting.  Outside the battle raged on, and she was lounging at her ease in the command chair.  People--her people, now--were dying out there.  She began to rise unsteadily to her feet.

 

**_Queen Amyana--_ **

_That's not my name, you realize that?_

**_My apologies, Queen Winifred.  I have not been maintained in some time.  Queen Winifred, your subjects need you alive and in command.  I do not doubt you will one day become expert at combat, but you must survive this day._ **

 

With a sigh she sank back into the chair.  Queen Winifred.  Was that what she wanted?  It seemed it was what she had chosen.

 

**_New forces are trying to enter the fray, Queen Winifred, but they seem hesitant to join battle.  Should I signal to them?_ **

 

Fred sat up again.  _Show me._ People were staring at her.  Well, she no doubt looked silly, leaning back and sitting up again over and over.  _Who are they?_  


**_Unknown, but I believe two Essence wielders have just been hurled into the water._ **

 

Fred thought that over for a moment.  _Can you magnify my anima?_  


**_Excellent suggestion, my queen._ **

 

She released a flood of energy, letting the vessel's systems replenish it for her, more than she ever had before.  High above her it manifested, a squid coiling tentacles over the huge dome of Luthe, a squid made of silver light, slowly changing as deep blue filled it.  The full moon was coming to an end.

 

*****

 

Xander drifted in the water, struggling against a vast undertow created by the Lunars' wake.  There was a way to breathe down here, he was certain, but he groped for it and it eluded him.  Still, he was making headway toward the surface.  Nelumbo rose faster beside him.

 

Words formed on the skin of the octopus he presumed to be the Sage.  FOOLS.  DO SOMETHING.  ACT.  LEVIATHAN IS WEAKENING.  But was the great whale friend or enemy?  How did he convey his question to the Sage of the Depths?

 

The great battle shifted, and suddenly he was above the Lunars as they rose up under his feet.  Together they broke the surface.

Shining from the city of Luthe he saw the huge shimmering image of a squid.  Fred was up there in the city.  One tentacle rose above him, tracking the location of Leviathan for the combatants.  Or was it the Sage she tracked?  The whale rocked beneath him, thrashing.  He stood on bony plates that buckled in a ring about Leviathan's eye, a great malevolent glaring thing at his feet.

FRED IS WITH ME.  Out of the water, the letters seemed blurred, muted.

Praying it wasn't a lie, he drew his sidearm and fired into Leviathan's eye.

 

Then he was in the air again.

Nelumbo seized him beneath the arms.  Xander turned, trying to face her as she rocket through the air.  "The Sage says he's on Fred's side.  Attack Leviathan--he's the whale, I mean.  Whatever  you've got."

 

"I will--and I'm signaling Captain Redfang.  She's still waiting."

 

Xander sighed.  "He, Nelumbo.  He."

 

*****

 

Half-blind, Leviathan rolled and bucked, raging, thrashing.  He would be free.  He would!  Who could hinder him?  Who could harm him?  How dare they lift a hand against him?

 

He had burned so much of his power, struggling against foes who, one on one, could never have injured him.  But they came at him, and came at him, and his strength was nearing its end.  An Essence image of a great crystal shard arced down at his other eye, and he spun, letting it strike only a surge of water.  He could not be defeated!

 

It rose up out of the depths at him, the form of a man in black armor, yet immense.  A Dragon-Blood, a Usurper.  This was the end.  The final battle of the Usurpation had arrived.  He was Leviathan!  He could not lose this fight!

 

A torrent of black Essence surged from the warstrider's cannons, and he could not evade it.  It hurt him the less for its nature, but he could not absorb it all.

 

Leviathan shrank and vanished.  If that was the way of it, he would lose the battle to win the war.  Imploding on himself within the water, creating a great suctioning force, he transformed, taking on the form of a simpler creature.  A small sea turtle slipped from the wake, dropping through the water.  He would not yield.  He would bide his time.  He would--

 

Sage of the Depths caught him between the curves of his beak.  His color-changing skin flashed simple denial.  "Not this time, Admiral.  Under the law of the Silver Pact, I hold you accountable."

 

Leviathan went limp in the Sage's grip.

 

*****

 

The Sage of the Depths was on one knee in front of Fred as she sat in the command throne of Luthe, scribing the last bit of her tattoos.  "I have thought long and hard on this, Winifred.  Your culture is full of things that have no correlation to mine, or that are long lost."

 

"Do you need some help?"  She didn't want to break the ritual by suggesting anything if she wasn't supposed to.  "I can come up with something if you want."

 

"Thank you, but no.  I am your mentor, and I should know you by now.  Let me see--something from your time and not ours--shall I perhaps call you 'Whiskey'?"  Her expression must have been appalling, because he chuckled.  She didn't think he did that very much.  "That was a joke, Winifred.  I name you 'Dreamer-of-Reason'."

 

Fred smiled.  He understood her better than he let on.  The Sage continued, "I do not know if you are truly a harbinger of the future, or if you come from another world something like our own.  But if you are not a liar--and I do not believe you are--then the place you come from has built a society that rivals the Shogunate, and done it with little or no command of Essence.  In your world, I do not doubt that you would have reached for new heights still.

 

"Our world is fallen, Dreamer-of-Reason, though it once towered higher than yours.  Perhaps it is for that purpose that you and your friends have come to us--not to bring power, for you lacked it--but to bring new dreams, ideas, and aspirations.  If you can break the cycle of violence and confrontation, we may yet see peace and wonder dawn on the world again--yet without the excesses that ended the First Age.  Dreamer-of-Reason, child of the Walker at the Crossroads, know yourself clearly, and nothing will prove impossible for you."  Fred stirred uneasily.  She had not had time to tell the Sage nearly all about her time--the pollution, warfare, and injustice to which she had been born.  But perhaps those things could be solved too.

 

A ring of silver light, clean and pure, burst forth on her brow.

 

"Now your first task as a full member of the Silver Pact waits for you, Dreamer-of-Reason."  He beckoned with a tentacle, and Thousand-Faceted Nelumbo and Gavrane Tomzari escorted Leviathan forward in human form and chains.  She had thought his size was purely a function of his powers, but even in this state he towered over her, his black hair and bronze skin even more striking when she spotted the mottled pattern of lighter spots on his wound-covered body.  "Normally we should not bring forth a member of the Silver Pact in chains, but he has committed serious offenses against your protectorate and then tried to flee."  Leviathan largely maintained a stony silence, but at the mention of Fred having a protectorate she heard him snarl.  "Moreover, though Leviathan broke our Way in attempting lethal force, as an elder Lunar I judge you to have successfully counted coup against him by defeating him.  As you led us in the battle, it is you to whom he owes blood debt."

 

"She was not a full member of the Silver Pact when the battle took place," Leviathan growled.  Fred jumped; to her surprise, so did the Sage. It took her a moment to realize that he had never before heard Leviathan's human voice.  "If I must owe blood debt to anyone, let it be you."

 

"She had been tattooed," the Sage said patiently, "and I had judged her to have fulfilled her tests.  She delayed at her own discretion, to finish the task she saw me as having set her.  Let us see if your own tattoos will respond to her, then.  Luna will decide."

 

Fred rose unsteadily to her feet and began the last few steps that separated her from Leviathan.  Her body was recovered, for the most part; her brain...not so much.  It still had issues controlling her body--or thinking in quotes.  ].. _.I will not yield to kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet/and to be baited with the rabble's curse..._  


 

The giant man took one step forward, burst his bonds, and lunged to her right, growing larger still.  ... _lay on, Macduff..._  


 

*****

 

There was no surrender, not to this queen of traitors.  Leviathan would not acknowledge her, not when he was within reach of victory.  He had not fought to the end of his strength, for one very specific reason.

 

Islebreaker awaited his hands.   He had spared himself enough energy to reach the weapon, which still held a store of Essence, and powers that he alone could now wield.  All he had to do was reach it, and he could smite down those who had betrayed him.  He was Leviathan, the unstoppable, and he would not give up.

 

His skin smoothed and shifted color, his muscles swelled, his teeth jutted from his growing maw.  The whale totem sprang instantly into being around him. He would not let her mark him; he had not been defeated.  He could not be defeated.  He was--

 

*****

 

Thousand-Faceted Nelumbo stepped smoothly to one side.  She had never intended to become so swiftly intermingled in any conflicts between Creation's Exalts.  Something had gone badly wrong here.  They had fallen so far.  But how?

 

Her foot flew out, and Leviathan stumbled.  He must be nearly out of energy indeed, however much he had conserved for this last struggle.  She brought her fists around in a piledriver motion, activating her Calibrated Combat Core array.

Leviathan slipped smoothly out of the way as if he had never been there.

 

*****

 

\--invincible--

 

*****

 

Gavrane Tomazri spun, a whirlwind of motion.  His foot came up, his torso down level with the floor, and his kick struck Leviathan square in the chest with a torrential burst of swirling black energy.

 

The whale-man stumbled briefly and shook off the blow without so much as a cough.  This time he had been ready.

 

*****

 

\--unbreakable--

 

*****

 

Xander fired the concussion pistol point-blank into Leviathan's face.

 

The energy washed around him and dissipated, and Leviathan slammed Xander backwards over the arm of a chair.

 

*****

 

\--indestructible--

 

*****

 

The Sage's anima sprouted spines like a sea urchin, and he lunged across his mentor's path.  Such shame to see his elder's dishonor, but he would not yield in the face of it.

 

Leviathan's hide wept blood as the spines pierced him, but he wrenched his student free and hurled him across the room.  He required but one more step...

 

*****

 

\--undefeated--

 

*****

 

Fred bent over the trident and seized it at the base of the tines.  She could not hope to lift it.  She could only block Leviathan's path.  His immense hands closed around her right arm and left leg and he raised her into the air over his head to hurl aside.  The weapon came up easily with her; it was Leviathan who was lifting it.

 

It was no effort at all to allow the trident to drop, tines-first, and pierce through the raging whale-man's chest.

 

*****

 

\--he was Leviathan.  Blood wheezed from his lungs, and he toppled to the floor, prone, dorsal fluke bent painfully under his back.

Leviathan heaved.  His limbs gave way beneath him.  Drained, it was all he could do to draw breath.  The traitor-queen bent over him.

 

"Next time," she whispered, "just make it out of something denser.  Neutronium would've worked.  This magic spell stuff?  Too exploitable."  One finger touched his nose, tracing a circle where none could miss it.  "Get him to sickbay.  I can't let him die on me.  He owes me one."

 

She waited until the medical team arrived so she could help him lift the trident out of his wounds.


	14. For the First Time All Over Again

Xander nestled close in Thousand-Faceted Nelumbo's arms.  "It's hard to believe you're not quite...um, human."

 

"But I am human, Xander.  I have a human soul.  Does being Exalted make you not human?"  Nelumbo sounded genuinely puzzled.

 

"Ex...right.  I'm sorry.  I remember you told me when we first met, but it keeps sliding away."  A lot of his memories seemed to be like that lately.  Who was it that had brought him to the island and Fred to Luthe?  What exactly was Nelumbo again?  Why had he been so nervous about going to bed with her?  Xander was going to have to try and work out a power for remembering things better, or he was going to end up with no memory of Creation at all by the time they got home.  "But  didn't you also say they made your flesh and put implants in you?"

 

Nelumbo nodded regretfully against his shoulder.  "They did.  My body is artificial.  I have a human soul that has been through many incarnations of heroism, but they built a body to house it.  I thought you understood that."

 

"Maybe I did."  Xander pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead.  "I'm sorry.  It's as if I can't keep track of what you have and haven't told me.

 

Thousand-Faceted Nelumbo pressed her lips together.  "It will be all right, Xander."  She seemed embarrassed about having gotten his name all confused.  "Don't worry about it.  It's a strange thing to you, I'm sure."  She kissed the back of his neck.  "It will pass."

 

"I could've sworn," he muttered.  "Nelumbo, have I ever mentioned someone named Anya?"

 

"I don't believe so," she said softly, the crystals of her hair tinkling as she shook her head.  "Why?"

 

"I don't know."

 

**Chapter 14 - For the First Time All Over Again**

 

"Not so strange," Iron Siaka insisted.  "Look, I'm not the one who worked this out.  'Ending' isn't the same thing as 'losing'.  Hmm...lemme see.  Imagine if the Solars had realized they were going crazy and said, 'Hey, guys, take over for a while and let us figure out a cure.'  Would that mean the Solars lost?  Nope.  If anything, it'd count as a win.  Course, they didn't do that, and we had to end the Old Realm a different way."

 

"But if the Sun throws the match to Saturn, wouldn't that still be losing?"  Anya liked to think of herself as a smart cookie, but Iron Siaka's logic just didn't seem to hold together.  "I'm not saying things can't come to an end without that--say, maybe if the games stopped being held--"

 

Iron Siaka jumped.  "What would we watch?  Hell, why would the gods do that?  Scratch that, nothing works right around here these days, but it doesn't seem like the kind of thing that'd happen."  They came to the end of the hall, to a huge iron-bound door of oak.  "The bigwigs are in here.  I don't envy you.  Nobody quite understands what's up with your Essence, but Chejop Kejak, Ayesha Ura, _and_ Nazri all want to get you figured out and recruit you."

 

"I keep telling you," Anya said, and opened the door, "I was a demon for a long time.  I lost my powers when I reverted to being human, but I didn't stop being the same person.  I just figure that being Exalted made it accessible again."

 

"Interesting notion," said the bald black man seated in the middle, behind the table.  "Nazri, Chosen of Endings, like you.  I can't say I've heard of anyone being a demon for any length of time and then reverting, but I do know of various magics that can transform you briefly.  You're certain you're not merely of demonic descent?"

 

"That would be an issue," said the woman on the left, who was nearly as dark but had short wavy hair.  "But it can be dealt with.  Demon-bloods make for problems when they Exalt, but in the end they're just people.  We had a Lintha serve with distinction on the Convention of Water a couple of centuries back.  And isn't there a Fae-blooded boy in Serenity right now, Iron Siaka?"

 

Siaka nodded politely but curtly.  "There is.  He's not what people think, though--his father was Mountain Folk.  Something's going on there but I don't really know what."

 

The man on the right snorted faintly.  Anya wouldn't have called him wizened--he was too robust for that--but his hair was flat grey and he was covered in wrinkles.  "The Jadeborn were inadvertantly created from raksha by Autochthon.  It's an old story; I'm not surprised you haven't heard it.  And yes, a variety of Demon-blooded have been effective Exalts of various stripes before, but that doesn't make them safe or easy to deal with.  For every one that works out, two have to be put down."

 

"Because you're all for putting down Exalts," the dark woman said snarkily.  "Yes, there have been problems, but no worse than with God-blooded of any sort.  Come to think of it, don't you recall that business with Nellens Yoriko?  That was a nightmare.  We had her all planned out before she was born, and then it turned out she was really Tasika's kid, and then she evaporated off the Order's radar when Mars came calling."

 

"How'd we overlook that one, anyway?"  Nazri shook his head.

 

Ayesha blushed as much as possible for her.  "We were, ah, in the middle of a flare-up with Kejak's people when Tasika was having his affair."

 

Nazri raised his eyebrows.  "Of course.  Anya, since my colleagues still haven't seen fit to introduce themselves: Ayesha Ura, Gold Faction leader, ranking Chosen of Journeys, and Eastern Convention Chair.  And Chejop Kejak, our most senior member and Bronze Faction leader, and the Chair of the Capital Convention."

 

"I'm not sure--"  Anya began.  What were all these factions and conventions?

 

"Bronze Faction overthrew the Solars, ushering in Dragon-Blooded rule and the ensuing dark age.  Gold Faction has been complaining about it ever since, not that they have an actual plan for _now_."

 

Anya frowned.  "Didn't give a faction for yourself.  I know something about office politics.  No disrespect intended."  They glared at her, and she pretended her tone had been perfectly genuine.

 

"Nazri keeps us both on our toes," Ayesha said after a moment.  "Nazri coordinates a jumble of independent small groups, none of which amounts to much by iself, but together they're enough to be a thorn in both our sides.  Don't think he doesn't have an agenda of his own, though."

 

"My agenda is the survival of Creation," Nazri said, his tone so calm that to Anya's ear he was obviously blustering like mad.

 

"So is mine," Chejop said with more than a hint of asperity.  "And yet you oppose me at every turn.  Come to think of it, Ayesha, while I certainly disagree with you--"

 

"Yes, Chejop.  Nazri, all of us want to keep Creation going.  You're not concealing anything from her this way."  Ayesha at least had the good grace to look embarrassed when she turned back to Anya.  "Nazri thinks we're all wasting our time fighting yesterday's battles.  Today's battle should be with the Fair Folk, he says.  Which is true as far as it goes, but they're far from the only threat."

 

Chejop held out a hand in front of Nazri, forestalling a response.  "I see you've gotten us sniping at each other and revealing things.  Which is inconvenient for us but at least speaks of useful skills for you.  Now, Iron Siaka, I suspect your hand was jostled while you were writing down the girl's age.  You should feel free to go file some reports.  How old did you say you were, Anya?"

 

Anya gave him a level look as Siaka patted her on the back and strolled out. "She wrote it down right, _Mister_ Kejak.  I'm eleven hundred forty-two years old.  I know, it doesn't show, does it.  Well, as the saying goes, when nine hundred years you reach, look as good you will not."

 

Chejop harrumphed loudly.  "My five thousandth birthday is coming quite soon, and I find I don't appreciate your brand of humor... _young lady_."

 

*****

 

Dawn strolled down the streets of Yu-Shan, trying to look casual.  There was nothing wrong.  She belonged here.  She was someone's favorite pet mortal...or maybe she wasn't a mortal at all.  That was it.  There were plenty of gods here who couldn't be distinguished from humans, walking along next to her.

 

She was starting to see that Yu-Shan was unlike any earthly city.  There were plenty of residences, many of them palatial in nature.  Green spread out everywhere, along with the pastel colors of multiple varieties of flower.  Many of the mansions rambled over the estate grounds as if meant to draw visitors through their rooms in some sequence.  Not everything was painted in brilliant colors, but outside of the slums nothing had the grey-brown hues of subdivision brick from Earth.  Even in the slums a lot of buildings bore the peeling remnants of shimmering beauty.

 

Then there were the business districts.  Well, district.  The only one of any real size seemed to be the Bureau of Destiny.  Anya was in there somewhere, probably in the huge mausoleum.  Gods who didn't plainly have business there seemed to shun the Bureau, really.  Either they walked right in and were gone, or their steps carried them around the far side of the street.  What there wasn't was any sort of manufacturing or mass market stores.  Here and there she saw small emporiums, and one or two large ones, advertising the superlative craftsmanship of one god or another.  Anya had had just time before she left to mention that the money here could just be wished into whatever you liked, so that made sense: no need for ordinary goods.

 

Finally there was pleasure.  Oh, not like a red light district, though she was passing the fringes of one of those now.  There were theaters with massive facades and ampitheaters where one could be heard plainly from any exterior spot.  There were gardens with no nearby home, which must simply be public parks.  And last but not least, there were fancy taverns and restaurants.  Those must be like the stores: you went there to socialize and to eat or drink stuff you couldn't really imagine having and thus couldn't make for yourself.

 

A hurrying figure, seemingly made of pure light, shoved its way past her in the crowd.  Dawn stumbled, on the verge of falling and maybe being trampled by the throng hurrying down the streets.

 

A hand seized hers.  "Hey, kidlet!  Nice to see a familiar face in this neck of the woods.  We need to talk."  Her rescuer hustled her toward the doorway of a tavern.  "C'mon, now.  You wouldn't want me to get all upset, now would you?  Not when I just saved your butt."

 

Dawn's throat clenched shut, preventing her from screaming wildly the way she wanted to.  That unbreakable grip on her arm, that voice babbling about the latest fashion in the latest slang...she knew them.

 

Her "rescuer" was Glory.

 

*****

 

"Anya, I understand that you're in a relationship," Ayesha said calmly.  "And believe me, I can see how that could be useful to us." She glanced over at Kejak as if daring him to threaten the new recruit's fiancee openly.  Of course he wouldn't do that; Anya understood just fine.  He would go behind everyone's back.  "But I'm not certain you understand certain repercussions of being a Sidereal."

 

"Is this going to be a talk about responsibility?  I know how not to misuse my position."  She did.  Though naturally she'd never had the chance to use being a vengeance demon to help a boyfriend.  Or even hurt one.

 

"No," Chejop said.  He sounded miffed about the idea that she was dating a Solar, naturally.  It wasn't as if it were her fault.  "It's going to be an explanation that he has likely already forgotten you."

 

"What?  It's only been a month since I saw him!"  If Xander had forgotten her in that little time, she was going to make her days as a demon look petty.

 

Nazri gave her a sympathetic look.  "You brought your other friends to Yu-Shan with you, and you were with them when you Exalted.  That will buy them a little time.  But Xander was away.  Unless he uses potent magic to prevent it--and he might have, if he knows the right techniques--the arcane fate we share will have likely eroded most or all of his memories away already."

 

"People forget us," Ayesha said, her most blunt statement yet.  "Anyone within fate.  Mortals, gods...other Chosen, even.  Not other Sidereals, small mercy though that is.  Maintaining a few relationships is possible, if you put sufficient effort into it, but it will take a considerable portion of your time."

 

"Anya," Chejop said patiently--in fact, now he sounded like  _he_ was trying to be kind, which she did not believe for a moment--"if you are in fact over a thousand years old, we need to begin training your Essence at once.  You are already unexpectedly powerful, but the true heights of essence manipulation can be reached only by those beyond their mortal years.  Under the circumstances, you could spend two or three years reaching the heights that take most new Exalts a millennium."

 

"Let me get this straight, then, Mr. Kejak."  She fixed the old man with her gaze, but he didn't flinch in the least.  She was going to have to work on that.  "You want to lock me away in a library or monastery or something to study and meditate.  And meanwhile all my friends will forget I ever existed, because I won't have time to interact with them at all."

 

"To one degree or another," Nazri said, "it's something we've all been through.  My people are entirely gone from Creation, Anya.  Don't think I wouldn't have saved them if I could have.  You need training, and you need us to give it to you.  Other Exalts use their abilities instinctively, and you may have managed to do so to some degree.  But our powers are linked tightly to the Loom of Fate.  Our greatest abilities come from manipulating destiny through it.  Even our innate powers were written specifically by the Maidens.  You're unlikely to get very far without our help."

 

"The supernatural martial arts come more easily to us," Chejop said, "but that merely means that we can use their highest tiers at all.  I could train you in techniques that no other new Exalt could hope to match, Anya."  Which wasn't to say that he would.  He didn't trust her.  He just wanted her under his eye...or thumb.  She thought.  Maybe it was a front, but she didn't think so.

 

"Not to mention there are a variety of other, more mundane abilities you'll need to be an effective Sidereal," the dark-skinned woman pointed out.  "We can train you quickly via magic--we'll have to, to some extent--but there are limits to our mystical resources in that regard.  And you cannot learn your duties and responsibilities overnight, even if you can learn skill that way.  We can make you a legend among Sidereals, though.  Just give us time with you."  Anya thought she trusted Ayesha a little farther...if only because she thought Xander was useful instead of a liability.

 

"I need some time to make a decision," she said carefully.  They smiled at her.  They were certain they had her.

 

Let them think it.

 

*****

 

Dawn was going to die any moment now.

 

"Let's have some ale!" Glory shouted, banging on the bar.  "For me and my new friend."  A bored-looking waiter strolled over, handed her a pair of full glasses with his curiously bloody hands, and walked away.  He didn't look quite human, but compared to some of the beings here....

 

"I, uh, do I know you?"  Dawn did, of course, but maybe Glory was involved in some kind of act.  And if she wasn't, maybe Dawn could figure out how to slip away.

 

"Well, I mean, y'know, not personally," Glory bubbled, taking a drink.  "But we might as well be sisters.  We're both in from the same place.  Sort of a place.  They treat us like dignitaries here, you know, even though they don't like us."

 

"Us?  The gods don't like you?"  Dawn didn't get it.  Glory was way too powerful for the framework Iron Siaka had described, but she _was_ a god.  Wasn't she?

 

"By Balor, kiddo, no.  They hate both our asses.  But they're too polite to let on, mostly.  Hey, what's your name, anyway?  I can't just go on saying 'kid'.  Delightful Storm of Witnesses?  Hallowed Bystander of Chocolate?  Sweeping Terror Conclave?  I'm Glorious Radiant Conflagration, myself."

 

This was getting surreal.  "Dawn Summers," she said faintly.  Glory didn't seem to recognize her, not even as the Key.  That improved her chances a little, but she had to be sure she was out of easy reach before she tried to run.

 

Glory took a moment to examine the name, mouthing it repeatedly.  "Dawn...Dawn Summer.  No, Summers.  How many summers?  Is this a trick name?  I don't get it."

 

"I'll explain later?  For right now, just call me Dawn."  Hopefully that would be safe.  For now.

 

"Undercover, are we?  I get it."  Glory dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper.  "It's okay, though.  They all know we're raksha."

 

*****

 

"There is one matter I hope you'll explain for us," Nazri said after a few moments.  "Tell me this, and I for one am content to let you take some time.  What kind of a demon were you?  How did you come to be one, and why is that no longer true?"

 

Okay.  Easy questions.  Dangerous, maybe, but easy.  "I was a vengeance demon.  I granted wishes to wreak havoc on the enemies of those who summoned me--specifically scorned women, in my case.  I was transformed into a demon by D'Hoffryn--"

 

"D'Hoffryn?"  Chejop interrupted.  "D'Hoffryn, Third Soul of the Endless Desert?"

 

"Endless Desert?  I...I don't think he ever mentioned that."

 

"Cecelyne," Ayesha said patiently.  "The enforcer of the Yozis' laws.  You're sure the name was D'Hoffryn?"  She rummaged about ineffectively for a moment.  "Black eyes, greyish skin, multiple pairs of horns?"

 

"That's the one."  Was there something special about D'Hoffryn?  This could be bad.

 

The old man muttered something under his breath; she thought it was "Maidens preserve us."  She waited for a moment to let him regain his composure, and finally he rasped out, "Do you realize the power D'Hoffryn wields?  He is among the most powerful of Third Circle demons.  Greater than some fetich souls."

 

"He was able to give me the ability to reshape reality," Anya said bluntly.  In for a penny and all that.  "I was pretty much undefeatable as long as no one broke my power center.  Unfortunately...."

 

"Someone broke it," the bald black man finished.  "It wasn't voluntary, then."

 

"No," Anya said.  "But I've had a good three years to come to terms with the fact that I can't go back.  To start relationships, and to start dealing with the idea that I'm gonna die in less time that I've already been alive.  Except I'm not going to, am I?"  Bloody hells, she hoped they weren't planning to kill her now.

 

"The Maidens hard-coded a maximum five thousand year lifespan into Sidereal Exaltations," Ayesha said.  "Not many of us reach it, but it's not unheard of.  Chejop is close.  I'm afraid you'll have lost over a thousand years of it already.  Price of power, I suppose."

 

He'd said his birthday was coming up.  "I'm sorry to hear that, Mister Kejak."

 

Chejop shrugged.  "I'm putting my affairs in order.  I mean to do all I can to see that the Bureau of Destiny goes on smoothly without me, until my Exaltation reincarnates.  But thank you for your condolences.  Some might think I am without heart, but I do appreciate your goodwill."  He made a show of checking some papers, but she heard him mutter "D'Hoffryn" again under his breath.

 

He was going to try and kill her.  She glanced at Nazri, then at Ayesha.

 

Maybe they all were.

 

*****

 

Dawn stared.  "We're what again?"

 

Glory scowled at her.  "Is this some kind of a joke, Seasons' Greetings?  Ra-ksha.  Fair Folk.  How long you had amnesia?"

 

"I don't know.  I remember being Buffy Summers' sister for sixteen years.  I know it's only really been about a year.  Before that they tell me I was just a ball of green energy called the Key."  Why didn't Glory know all this?  How--?

 

She hadn't followed them here.  This Glory, this _past_ Glory didn't know her at all.

 

"A ball of...."  Glory's face suddenly lit up.  "Oh-ho-ho.  I see it now.  They made an artifact out of you.  The Key.  Don't know what that is.  Sounds like something I'd want though.  But it won't work now.  Someone must have made you a new Heart and Ring.  I get it.  You really were nobody for a while.  No wonder you don't remember anything.  Well, Hot Stuff in the Morning, you just hit the jackpot.  Come with Glory, and I'm gonna show you exactly what you are and what you can do."

 

"Um...but my friends...and I have a sister.  I'm just not sure where she is."  No.  No way!  She was not going anywhere with Glory of all people, not even if this Glory seemed to think she could be Dawn's friend.  And if the Key hadn't even been made yet...  Dawn began to stand up.

 

Glory put a hand on her shoulder.  "Daybreak, you gotta know.  Humans are not your friends.  You're not their friend either, or their sister.  These people, they're just...characters in a play.  You're the audience.  They don't really feel anything for you.  They don't really feel anything at all."

 

Dawn blinked.  "You're serious?"

 

"Nope.  I'm Glory.  Sirius is god of dogs.  He lives around here somewhere, probably.  Maybe not in this district.  Get with the program, girl."  She was joking.  She had to be.  "Gods don't feel anything either.  They're characters too.  Just a different splat."

 

"Splat?"

 

"C'mon, now, you don't want me to start a fight, do you?  Splat.  The noise they make when I punch them."  The curly-haired blond goddess--well, she wasn't really that after all, was she?--yanked Dawn to her feet.  "Get up.  I'm gonna show you what life is like when you're good and charged up.  Once you go Wyld, you'll never wanna be mild.  Or something like that."

 

*****

 

"Eyes open, Anya."  Iron Siaka wasn't enjoying showing Anya around Yu-Shan quite as much as she'd expected.  In spite of having punished unfaithful men for a thousand years, apparently, Anya seemed to have only the occasional passing fancy for women.  It must have been very frustrating for her.  Iron Siaka tried to sympathize.  She took her hands away, too.  "Welcome to the Loom of Fate."

 

Some new Sidereals broke and ran.  Some had trouble tearing their eyes away out of horror.  A few were just plain fascinated--usually the smartest, best educated ones.  Iron Siaka had no idea how her technical sort-of-wife was going to react, and hadn't had a chance to get in on any betting pools.  If there were any.  New Sidereals were rarely a surprise, and none so much as Anya, who hadn't even been in Creation a month ago.

 

Anya stared at the Loom.  She stared.  It didn't look like either horror or excitement.  Iron Siaka wasn't sure what it did look like.  Finally Anya opened her mouth.  Closed it again.  And....

 

"It looks familiar."

 

"What."  There was nothing like the Loom in all of Creation, and Siaka doubted there was a duplicate wherever Anya had appeared from.

 

"I said it looks familiar.  It's not the same, but...Siaka, I used something like this when I was working for D'Hoffryn."  The woman stretched out a hand toward it; a pattern spider shuffled into her way.  "I tracked wishers on it, but mostly we used it to create false identities.  Like Anya Christina Emmanuela Jenkins.  That one only became permanent when I was kicked out."

 

"You what?"  This had to be some kind of prank.  No, pranks were played _on_ new Sidereals, not by them.  "D'Hoffryn has a copy of the Loom?  That...that could be a disaster.  Even if it's a cheap knockoff, that's no good at all.  You don't understand."

 

"I don't even know if he has it here and now, Siaka."  Anya had the sense to look worried, at least.  "It wasn't something we talked about.  We just kind of assumed it was something he had because, well, he was a demon."

 

"Well, it's not.  The Loom was made by Autochthon and I can't imagine anyone being able to duplicate it, Anya.  If a demon has it...well, I guess it could theoretically be a Yozi's work, but none of them were supposed to be as inventive as Autochthon."  She was going to have to talk to Chejop Kejak about this.  Maidens, she was going to have to talk to the whole _Bureau_ about this, Gold Stars and all!

 

"It might not be a duplicate.  It might be the real thing, only broken.  You know, like in the future."  Anya didn't seem to understand what she was suggesting, though she must have seen the horror on Siaka's face.  The Loom, _broken_?

 

Maybe Oramus could duplicate it.  Or Cytherea.  They were strange like that.  "Whatever it is, it needs investigating.  And you're too new, Anya.  There's no way you'll get sent out on a mission like that.  Good way to get you killed."

 

Anya's face assumed a strange expression.  "I'll give you ten to one odds that if there is any such mission, I get assigned it."

 

"Desus, Anya!"  Anya blinked.  Siaka realized she must still be mangling that curse somehow.  What was with Anya's accent, anyway?  It had to be Desus she was cursing by.  "You're saying the Bureau will try to get you killed?  For one thing, that's insane.  Ex-demon or whatever, you're one of the best assets to come along in ages.  For another, keep in mind that we're linked.  You can't die without killing me in the process, Anya."

 

"Guess we'll be going together, then."  Anya's tone was dry and, well...fatalistic.  "They'll send you to 'supervise the newbie'."

 

"It won't happen," Iron Siaka insisted.  Sure, the higher-ups could be ruthless.  But...not like that.  That way lay madness.

 

*****

 

"This way!" Glory called, and Dawn sidled warily after her.  She didn't think this slum was the same one as the one Anya's apartment was on the edge of, but it was hard to be sure.  Yu-Shan was _huge_.  Maybe if she made a break for it, she could lose Glory in the maze of alleys.

 

The scuttling little creatures looked apelike, but their heads were larger, and they called out to one another in what was plainly a complex language, regardless of Dawn's ability to understand.  They wore clothes, and some of them had a bandolier of tools.

 

Glory was hunting them, and they knew enough to be afraid.  She wasn't bothering with stealth, admittedly.  As Dawn watched, she smashed right through a small bridge over a dried-up canal and seized one of the little gods by the leg.  "Come hang on to this one," she shouted.  "I'll get another one for me."

 

Nervously Dawn took hold of his arm.  "I'm sorry," she whispered.  "I'll let you get away if I can."  Glory didn't seem to hear, fortunately.  Dawn didn't think she remembered the supposed goddess having any special senses.  Whatever a raksha was, Glory didn't seem any less powerful than when Dawn had seen her last.  She did show a tiny bit of caution, but then they were in a city full of gods.

 

The vapid-seeming blond trampled her way back to Dawn, holding a second creature by the arm.  "I'm gonna show you how it's done," she explained.  Dawn fretted nervously.  If she'd encountered these creatures in Sunnydale, she'd have thought of them as demons, and probably called Buffy to slay them.  Was it really so bad if Glory brain-sucked them?  But then would she say the same if Glory were going after gods who looked more like, well, people.

 

Glory plunged her hands into the creature's head.  It screamed, and Glory screamed with it, but for her it was a cry of ecstacy.  "Woooo," she finished.  "So much better."  The little ape-god sagged to the ground.  Even if these beings were evil, though, it wasn't just that Glory wanted to brain-suck them.  "Okay, kiddo," Glory said.  "You saw what I did.  Your turn."

 

Dawn had tried protesting that she wasn't able to do this, but Glory refused to take no for an answer.  Maybe if she demonstrated that it didn't work, the "raksha", whatever she was, would leave her alone.  Dawn raised her hands to the sides of the being's head.  "Go on," Glory encouraged.  Dawn clasped her hands around its skull.

 

They sank in.

 

Absolute.

 

Utter.

 

Joy.

 

*****

 

"Ayesha insists you used a technique of Throne Shadow Style," Chejop Kejak said.

 

"I don't even know what that is," Anya protested.

 

"Surprisingly," the old man said softly, "I find that entirely understandable.  Throne Shadow Style was the original instinctive fighting art of the Glorious Viziers, just as there are Solar, Lunar, and Terrestrial Hero Styles.  It lost much of its utility after we were forced to overthrow the Solars, and the Maidens designed a new fighting style for us.  Violet Bier of Sorrows Style is just as instinctive, but its properties are different.  I am not going to train you in Throne Shadow Style.  It's too powerful for a beginning student.  The one technique you remembered spontaneously merely cloaks your fighting ability, and should be useful but not excessively dangerous."

 

"So what _do_ you plan to train me in?"  She had gradually absorbed bits of Buffy's ordinary battle technique while working with her, and pieces of other combat styles over the centuries, but applying magic to them was something that had never occurred to her.

 

"As a Sidereal, and a Chosen of Endings at that, supernatural martial arts should come easily to you.  Still, the Sidereal styles are, in my opinion, too much for you as well, though unlike most new students you may technically have the ability to learn them.  I intend to assess your knowledge of Violet Bier of Sorrows Style, a Celestial style that Ayesha also says she observed you using.  After that...well, I will show you a list of the different styles that have been developed over the years.  Terrestrial styles are weak, but far from useless, and can be learned quickly.  The few Sidereals who know them have mastered many diverse techniques, but in my personal opinion your time would be wasted on them.  Your essence is too well-developed for such things.  Celestial styles are far more powerful, but not as easy to learn."

 

Anya winced.  "I don't understand what the difference is.  Can't you explain more clearly than just saying how powerful they are?"

 

Surprisingly, the old man smiled.  "A mortal martial artist may break a board, or leap to the top of a rock.  A Terrestrial martial artist may shatter stone, or leap atop a house.  A master of the Celestial arts might split metal, or bound over mountains.  And a Sidereal master can break your soul, or leap from Creation to Yu-Shan.  I always did like that explanation."

 

"You come up with it?"  Anya couldn't explain why she felt the urge to tweak him.  It wasn't just about Xander.

 

"No, in fact.  It was old when I was young."  His face remained crinkled with mirth.  "The simplest styles apply the flows of essence to ordinary combat.  They merely enhance what anyone can do.  More advanced styles invoke supernatural powers and include them in the fighting arts.  Imagine a martial art based around manipulating flame, or water--the Immaculate styles we have taught the Terrestrials are such.  There are others."

 

"Telekinesis...um, moving objects with your mind?"  Anya imagined Willow flinging pencils about.

 

"Hmm.  I haven't heard of such an art.  Perhaps you'll develop it one day.  The Sidereal techniques moved beyond even that.  They apply the principles of martial arts--force, leverage, constraint, and so forth--to mystic phenomena instead of the other way around."

 

She tried to wrap her head around that.  "I'm sorry, I don't get it."

 

"Precisely.  When you begin to, you will be ready to learn those arts, and not before."

 

"You enjoy talking about this, don't you?"  He seemed to have forgotten--almost--how dangerous he thought she was.  This was the closest thing to fun he still had in his life.

 

"I do.  And you may well be my last student, Anya.  I can only hope that you will be my best.  Please--listen to what I have to say.  Let me pass on my wisdom while I have time."

 

He was sincere.  She thought, anyway.  Maybe he was just cloaking his deceit with magic, but he felt sincere.  But then, how and why was he planning to kill her?  She'd been sure of that too.  "I'll try not to disappoint.  Wait, I know.  Do or do not; there is no try."

 

Chejop Kejak surprised her.  He laughed.

 

*****

 

It was like a feast after spending her life surviving on crumbs.

 

It was like finally getting a good night's sleep after living on catnaps.

 

It was like...well, she'd heard this analogy after Buffy had started spending nights with Riley.  She wouldn't be happy knowing Dawn remembered it.

 

Dawn felt _satisfied_.  Full of energy, not in a buzzed sort of way (though there was a little of that), but simply, finally, running on full instead of empty.

 

"Shit," she heard herself say, and was distantly embarrassed.  "I really did it."

 

"You bet your bacon, kiddo.  Told you you were one of us."  Glory offered her a high five--the first high five she'd seen since coming here--and she returned it, feeling disoriented still.  The Glory she'd known had admittedly been deranged, but Dawn had never imagined her as being deliberately helpful.  How long had she been trapped?  How much had she been changed by the experience?  Clearly a lot of her personality remained the same.  Of course, there was always the chance she was just manipulating Dawn.

 

Then again, Glory had just wanted to go home.  She was amoral and predatory, but this Glory _was_ home, or at least free to go there whenever she pleased.  Dawn wasn't important to her plans.

 

Of course, there was the pair of poor ape-gods wandering off in confusion.  That couldn't be something they deserved.  "Did we have to do that?"

 

"Hey, hey, hey.  You'll learn, Aurora.  We're better than they are.  They're not even real, don't you see it?  We couldn't do this if they were real."  Glory whipped out a tissue from apparently nowhere and wiped Dawn's eyes.  "I promise it'll get easier.  You'll start remembering more.  This is who you are."

 

God no.  That was the last thing Dawn needed to hear.

 

*****

 

"Here's the deal," Fred explained.  "I need a navy.  A lot of our ships were wrecked by Leviathan, but not all.  Having a navy means I need someone in command."

 

Xander tried to keep his mind on the subject, but it wasn't easy.  He wondered why someone as gobsmackingly hot as Nelumbo was single.  It had something to do with the holes that nagged at his memory, but he wasn't sure what.

 

"I don't care how much authority you let go to Captain Tya Redfang, Xander.  He's more than competent.  But the sailors--the ones who won't just mutiny and go to the Realm, anyway--will look up to you more, because you're Exalted."

 

Whenever he tried to remember how he'd gotten here, the memory slipped and slid.  Someone had to have brought them, but there just wasn't anyone he knew who could've done the job.  An ocean deity?  A random sailor?  A demon?  Who?  "What about Nelumbo?" he asked absently.

 

"Nelumbo's a big help," Fred said patiently, "so long as she's here.  And she's good to talk to.  But, well...once she gets enough hungry ghosts from Skullstone, she's gonna leave.  She'll go home to her world, wherever that is, and I don't think we'll be ready to go home by then."

 

He couldn't remember exactly who Nelumbo was, either.  She wasn't a god.  She wasn't a demon or a ghost.  She was a robot of some kind, but more than a robot.  She was an...Exalted, but not any type he was familiar with.  So of course she must not really be Exalted.

 

Okay, that was convoluted and just plain _wrong_.  But what was right?

 

And he hadn't wanted to sleep with Nelumbo at first, but _why the hell not_?  What could have kept him away from her?  She was strange-looking, but she was gorgeous all the same.  That crystal hair....

 

"Xander, are you listening to me?"

 

There were just too many gaps in his memory lately.  "I'm sorry, Fred.  I'm having some kind of issues here.  Um...was I with anyone when we met?"

 

Fred thought about that for a moment.  "It seems like you were.  But there's no one you could've been dating.  Cordelia was with Angel's group, Buffy had just broken up with Riley, and Tara and Willow were together.  You're cute, but I hadn't said anything.  And as far as I know, you're not into guys."

 

"So why didn't I jump all over Nelumbo as soon as we met?  She's--"  A single crystalline light formed in his mind.  It split and blossomed like a seed.  "--one of the most beautiful people I've ever met, and she goes around naked--"  _And frankly, it's ludicrous to have these interlocking bodies and not...interlock.  Please remove your clothing now._   "Shit.  Shit.  Anya."

 

Fred stared at him.  "Who's Anya?"


	15. Hellscape

"It's a long way back," Angel grumbled. "And I don't know about you, but I've been to hell and I'm not liking the idea of going there again."

Spike thought that over. Then he thought it over again. Unusually, he decided to think it over a third time. "Nope," he said at last. "I'm not seeing the down side. Look, Mister Sunshine, the girls had the right of it. We're in a hell dimension already; it's just a matter of degree. Second, we definitely can't stay in Paragon, and I wouldn't sign away my freedom if I could. An' c, we may as well catch up with Buffy, because they won't let us into whatever passes for heaven here. As if that were a surprise."

Mister Broody-Pants mulled that over himself. "All right, you've got a point. Several points. We can travel faster without the others anyway. We make for that town where Buffy said there was a portal. What was it she called it?"

"A gate of inauspicious passage," Spike allowed. As usual, Angel looked startled that Spike remembered anything. "We'll have to cast about for it. Who knows, though? I could sense the hellmouth, couldn't you? Just keep your eyes open."

"Think we'll catch up with her in time?"

"Got anything better to do?"

Angel sighed, shrugged, and said, "Lead the way."

**Chapter 15:Hellscape ******

It didn't seem like that much of a party, really, which suited Lilah just fine. She hadn't planned it to make Holland happy. The old man never really seemed put out, but tonight he was plainly lost in thought, and that didn't typically bode well for him.

"Did I ever tell you," he asked, "about why I signed on with Wolfram and Hart? It had to do with my kids."

"Go on," Lilah said grudgingly. Kids were a horrific mess. They screamed and threw food and left shit everywhere, and that was after they were nearly grown. Babies didn't even bear consideration. Adult children, admittedly, had some uses, but the only time Lilah had ever wished she'd borne offspring was in May, when the annual company sacrifices came around.

"They tell you the educational system in this country is the best in the world," Holland said. "And it is--if you're rich, or if you live in a good spot. But there's only so much a good education can do if you're just not very bright. I never did tell you about one of our best, Brad Kendall, and his daughter, did I? Never mind that now. My son--"

Lilah did her best to listen without really hearing. It was a skill you had to acquire in law, where you needed to remember the smallest of facts but listening to babbling clients could become excruciating. **_Almost too easy_** , Darla muttered in her head. **_Never really liked the old geezer, even if he was useful at times._**

"I'm sorry you had to sacrifice so much for your son," Lilah said at the end of his spiel. Holland's manner frequently disarmed or unnerved would-be heroes who were expecting someone more obviously evil, but to her, it was far more irritating when he began these speeches. It would be good to be done with him. "Working for the company must have been really difficult for you at first," she added for good measure. She didn't expect to get a suicide out of that alone; Manners was tougher than he might seem at first. But it would make him careless. Before he could start in on another, less accurate recollection, she excused herself to head for the ladies' room.

 ** _Nice work_** , Darla started as Lilah splashed a little water on her face--it'd been a month since she actually needed to use a toilet for anything--and then the vampire in her head stopped short. _**Incoming.**_

When Lilah looked up again, a very attractive young Latina with startling dark blue eyes was standing behind her, waiting patiently and incidentally blocking the door. "Your handling of Manners was very neat," she said. "It'll be a pity to lose him."

Lilah schooled her face to stillness. "I wouldn't dare try to replace him if I couldn't do his job better than he can."

"You believe you can do that?" Not the faintest sign of a human reaction on that face.

 _ **Envoy from the Senior Partners?**_ Darla suggested. Lilah gave her a mental shrug. Probably, but it wasn't guaranteed.

"These days I can do _anything_ better than he can." Absolute truth, naturally. You only lied when it was really necessary.

"Fortunately for you, I'm inclined to agree." The young woman reached out and locked the door. "We haven't met, but you know me. Specifically, you know me as the Hart."

Lilah began to offer a retort about the Senior Partners being sealed away in another plane, but before she could do so the woman lifted her long skirt away from the floor, revealing a pair of cloven hooves. Lilah fumbled for the briefest of moments, then recovered. There were plenty of demons with hooves. "I hate to burst your bubble, but actually a hart is a male deer of a particular age. Not that I'd ask a lady her age, since it's so frequently deceptive anyway."

The woman gave her a level look, then ran her hands down her skirt, briefly revealing an immense bulge that vanished faster than could be accounted for by the cloth rearranging itself. "Come now, Miss Morgan. In my line of work, being flexible is a necessity." She leaned forward until her mouth was an inch from Lilah's and spoke more faintly, wisps of smoke curling from her lips and vanishing as Lilah breathed them in. "Calling me the Hart would be awkward in polite company anyway. My name, to keep it short, is Mara."

*****

"So this is what a Hellmouth looks like around here." Spike gave the portal a skeptical look. The immense squared-off doorway was carved in all manner of symbols and glyphs; most were beyond his ability to read, but here and there pictographs seemed to be depicting a war and a prison. "Who made the damn thing, I wonder?"

"To hear people talk, anything advanced and dangerous was made by the Anathema," Angel said, a tinge of amusement in his voice. "You'd think that they wouldn't drill a gateway straight into the prison they made, though."

Spike scoffed. "Every prison needs a way in and out. I don't know if demons need supplies, but I guarantee you they still have things the humans want. An' if you ask me, I bet they have some kind of parole system. Humans are arrogant buggers. You think it's as easy as it is to summon demons by accident?"

Angel frowned as if he didn't really believe Spike could be serious. Well, whatever. The gateway terminated in a wall inscribed in more glyphs, with a little cluster of tents set up at the bottom. "Somebody's got a use for it," Spike muttered to himself. "Can't be a good thing." He rummaged about in the tents for a moment, but he didn't recognize any scents, and there was nothing obviously incriminating. He pulled a random piece of cloth--a torn sock, looked like--from a heap of rubbish, and stuffed it in his back pocket. "Evidence," he said when Angel gave him a strange look. Angel was the investigator; he ought to understand. "Let's get on with it."

Together they stepped through the door to hell.

*****

Lilah wasn't familiar with the code Mara tapped in on the elevator buttons. The result was similar to one she was familiar with, though--the car plummeted into an abyss. "I remember when it took five days to get from Creation to Malfeas," Mara said softly. "Makes me nostalgic."

"Isn't technology wonderful?" Lilah wasn't sure what kind of emotion the demoness was feeling, but she had no interest in making her feel better.

"If it were a matter of technology," Mara said drily, "the First Age would have had much better than this. It took five days to cross Cecelyne because that was the nature of the cosmic principles the Yozi represented. Only the highest wonders were able to circumvent that by crossing straight into the Demon City."

Lilah's stomach rose as the elevator fell faster. "Then how are we doing it? What's changed that we can cross Cecelyne so fast?"

Mara sighed. "We still can't. We don't have to. There is no Cecelyne anymore. At least, no single Cecelyne. That's what I hoped to discuss with you."

Gradually the elevator began to slow. "So an entire cosmic principle...what? Died?"

"Was killed. In the Yozi War. Thousands of years ago, so long that even we higher demons no longer remember what exactly brought it about. All I know myself is that it was touched off by the death of my progenitor, the Ebon Dragon." Mara looked pensively at the elevator floor as the doors opened. "Then the bloodbath began." She stepped out into a shattered landscape of verdigris and basalt rubble beneath an emerald sun.

Lilah followed, staring. This had been a city once, a city that dwarfed Los Angeles. Even its ruins rose taller than the Wolfram and Hart tower, arching into the sky above. "But you survived."

"Most of us lower souls did. The Green Sun Princes rose to fill the Yozis' places...after a fashion. They had the potential to grow into the images of their patrons, to become replacements for them. It never truly happened, though. The originals had never intended that to happen, had in fact engineered them to try and prevent it. As the war degenerated, a dozen Malfeases and Adorjans and Kimberies warred with each other. They couldn't fully die any more than their originals could. They became ultra-powerful nightmare specters when they were killed--we call them the Onceborn, just as the dead Primordials are the Neverborn. Perhaps in time one of each might have subsumed the others, given a little longer. I don't believe it, though." Mara stared at her hands. "I've been passed from Ebon Dragon to petty Ebon Dragon so many times I'm not even sure I'm the same demon any longer."

Lilah stepped a little way up a shard of a brazen wall. _You getting this? Anything sound familiar?_ "What put an end to the war? Or is it still going on?" A few faces had begun to peer around the bits of rubble. Demons. She recognized a few of the species.

**_It sounds...right. But I don't remember it, not consciously at least. I'd guess it was long before my time._ **

"Oh, it sputters on after a fashion. The greater part of it came to an end when the last of the original Yozis tried to save Creation. They--we don't know who--forged the Six-Metal Prison to lock away all of the Exaltations. They were too great a prize, and too dangerous a weapon. But it was too late for that. The last Yozi died, and Creation died with it."

Lilah wondered idly if the lavender demons creeping out of the emerald wreckage represented the Lollipop Guild. _Stop that!_ Darla tittered at the image. "Wait. If Creation died, where did we just come from?"

Mara gave her a twisted grin. "Exactly where you say you came from. Earth. You live on Earth." She reached out to pat a needle-haired demon on the head. It snarled and whimpered like a feral dog. "The two Primordials who were never imprisoned or killed still survive. Autochthon--at least, I haven't heard of him dying, though he might have--and Gaia. They weren't enough to sustain Creation on their own, but at the climax of the war, they carried away the survivors as it crumbled." Mara waved her hands around expansively. "The demon realms still survive, after a fashion. The Wyld exists. I don't know about Yu-Shan, though you hear tales of heaven here and there. I expect there's still an underworld too. We expected the Neverborn to get what they wanted and fall into Oblivion when Creation ended, but apparently too much survived. There are more of them than ever before."

Lilah glared at the needle demon, which fled. "I don't understand. Why bring me here? The stories say you aid those fated to bring great horror into the world." She stared around at the endless rubble. "Is that what you mean me to do? I'm no goody-two-shoes, but I know which side my bread's buttered on. I'm not bringing this kind of destruction to Earth."

"The Chosen of Saturn used to say, 'Better a horrible ending than horrors without end,'" Mara said with uncharacteristic good humor. "Allow me to turn that saying on its head. Better unending horror than the end of existence. The world has ground on with most of its mystic underpinnings gone for several thousand years now, but that doesn't mean it can do so forever. The Six-Metal Prison deprived us of Exalted to fix things, but now you're back."

Lilah nodded. "And is that what I am, then? An...Exalted? Holland thought that the Prison contained Slayers. Their essences, anyway."

Mara outright snickered at that. "A Slayer? You? I'm sorry, I've got an image of you painted in skulls and carrying an Uzi. No, that's not you, Lilah. I"m sure you're capable of violence, but you're no Slayer. What you are is a Fiend, and I don't say that as a humorous compliment. That is your Caste. You're a diplomat, a lawyer, a politician. You grease the wheels with your words. I'm sure you'll come in handy, but I'm not sure you can do the job we need on your own. What about the Prison? We intended for you and Holland to release the rest of the Exaltations, but you've stopped him from going ahead with it."

"It occurred to me just before...just after I didn't tell Holland to stop that we were opening a literal Pandora's box. This is a genie we can't put back inside, isn't it? Several hundred genies, in fact." Lilah waved at the devastation that had been the Demon City. "What if all that happens is, we do this to Earth? Then all that's left is Autochthon, and you said he might be dead already."

"Poor sick bastard," Mara agreed. "He might. Never was in the best of health. But there comes a point where you have to take risks, and we passed it several millennia ago, if you ask me. I'm not saying the world will end tomorrow. It's hung on this long, and I expect you have some time. Just...consider that you may need help for something this impossible. And in the meanwhile...yes, you have some training to get on with, and I'm here to help you with that."

She hadn't really answered Lilah's objection. Lilah filed it away. She'd ask again later.

*****

Bitter Copal enlarged a portion of the image. "See here? The paws of a big cat. And here." The hologlyph advanced a little further. "Watch the wings materialize." He sketched out a rough drawing of the demon, starting with the features he'd named. "Dragon head, cat paws, wings...What you're dealing with here is a radeken." He waited while Buffy peered at the thing. "You don't have any obvious mutations to resemble it, but not all of our changes are obvious, and it could be yet another thing that's worn away over the millennia."

"it could be worse," Cyan said after a few moments. "They're no more intrinsically violent than erymanthoi--"

"That's debatable," Copal cut in.

"--albeit less predictable. And at least it explains quite a bit about your history. A radeken is the best Kimberian choice for a Slayer I can think of, the only thing that comes immediately to mind save a baidak, and I can't imagine that would work well--"

"Conceivably a fers baidak might make a successful alembic. What that would do to the host's mind, I'm not sure."

"--but inserting a radeken consciousness into a young girl, even in a primitive tribe...well, I can certainly see how that would result in her being exiled. Or more likely, of her slaughtering the village. Did anyone actually say she had been exiled, or was that your inference?" Cyan didn't sound nearly so cold as Copal, but she was completely ignoring the look of panic Buffy was sure she had on her face.

"Then I actually do have a demon inside me? A violent, dangerous demon?" Dracula had said the Slayer powers were rooted in darkness, but he had never really said how, and her attempts to find out what that meant had been interrupted completely by Glory's first attack.

Copal grunted under his breath. "Did you really believe that much had changed between you and us? Cyan, are you certain this mewling thing is the one foretold?"

Cyan made a dismissive gesture. "She's got more grit in her than first appearances usually show. The surface cowardice is likely how they got to her in the first place. She'll adjust, but she was taught for a good five years that she was a shining exemplar of light against darkness and demonic powers."

"Hmph. Well, Buffy, now that it's woken I can't imagine it will return to dormancy. At the very least, not without a fight. I will be highly interested to observe you at any time, to see how the struggle shapes you, so by all means feel free to ask for advice."

Cyan put a comforting hand on Buffy's shoulder. For all her deception, she and Sulumor had been the best stabilizing force Buffy had had since arriving in Malfeas. "The unwoven coadjutor is a source of strength, Buffy. It can be inconvenient at times--consider that I have a firmin living in my head. They're barely sapient, if at all. Radeken can be hateful, but I suspect they're easier to negotiate with. You just have to work out what they want." "In that case," Buffy muttered, "I guess I should go take a nap before I leave."

"Very much worth your time," Cyan agreed. "Get to know your coadjutor. Perhaps she'll do nothing but snarl and fight, but you can't be sure till you take the risk."

*****

Desert.

Buffy climbed up a little hill to put a hand on the scrubby tree. Was this Cecelyne? It was less barren than the area she had passed through with Sulumor, but she'd implied that all desolate places were part of Cecelyne, even dead salt seas.

The Primitive touched Buffy on the shoulder, and she leapt about five feet in the air. Not an exaggeration; she found herself clinging to the tree limbs. Buffy released her grip and dropped back down. "Watch. Listen. Or you die." It was the raspy voice Sineya had used at the end of her dream, not Tara's voice or the slightly more cultured voice she had used to say that death was Buffy's gift.

"Thought I'd learned that." She turned to face the other and found herself virtually nose-to-nose with her. "You don't have to look like this for me. I know what you are."

"Do you?" Well, it was a simple enough question. She remembered Adam saying the two of them came by their aggression a different way from regular people. She hadn't understood that at all, at the time.

"You're a radeken. A demon. I guess this is what you looked like in your first incarnation as an Infernal?" The Primitive growled. "Bad memory? Sorry. The others talk as if there's supposed to be a new coadjutor for each incarnation."

The Primitive shrugged. "Something wrong. Something changed. Something broken." Her form dissolved into a swirling sandstorm. "Long dry time." The blowing grit coalesced into a bulky creature with tawny feet like a mountain lion, the great black wings of a condor, and a bone-white dragon head like a skull.

Buffy nodded. "See? Not attacking. Wouldn't do any good anyway."

"You don't sleep on a bed of bones," the creature growled. Not angrily; that was simply the way it spoke, no differently from in Sineya's shape. "The floods rolled back, and you're a fireman."

"Um. You remember. Not bad."

"You kill. Blood. Fire. Strength."

She breathed deep. "I guess. But I don't fight alone. I have friends. We work together. We can work together."

The creature snarled. "We do. You are I. Enough."

"There are things you could teach me." _But do I want to know them?_

The creature curled up like a cat around the base of the tree. "Why? What you give? No blood. No smoke. No power. Where?"

 _It craves the scent of blood, not the blood itself. Could that be how it started fixating on vampires?_ "You want blood? What if I give you blood?" Maybe there was a way. _This thing...this_ beast _made me what I am?_

"You always gave me blood. You fight. You kill. Things that drink, that reek. What more you give?"

Good question. It craved smoke. And it stole power from weather, but how could she give it that? Was that a power she had? None of the Infernals she'd worked with had mentioned that ability. "I can burn things. You want me to burn things for you?" Dangerous, in the dry South, but easy.

"Mmmm. I...consider. Go."

It looked as if that was all the answer she was going to get.

*****

"Now leaving the Emerald City," Mara said. A gateway loomed before them, an arch of black nacre. "Sorry if you were hoping to meet the wizard."

"From what you say, the wizard is long dead." Lilah stepped through and found herself on a steep slope of volcanic glass, beneath a blank white sky. Up it, to her amusement, wound a road of yellow brick. "I don't suppose this goes back to Kansas?"

Mara emerged behind her. "This is a fragment of Qaf, the Heaven-Violating Spear. I suppose you might find a way back to Earth from here. No guarantees. As for wizards...well, Dorothy, not just anyone can wear the Silver Slippers. I brought you here, not to meet a wizard, but to make one of you." She began to stroll up the slope. "Walk with me."

 _ **I wish I could tell if she were crazy or not.**_ Darla's apprehension carried through, a thick miasma of worry.

 _Oh, I'm sure she's crazy. Especially if she's telling the truth._ She followed along in the demon's wake. The path wound past streams of water and lava and acid, over lumps of metal and past piles of dirt, but there was no sign of any life. "So you want me to open the Prison further. Free the other Exaltations. But they don't all serve the Yozis, not if the Slayer was one of them."

"No, they don't--though she did once. Ironically, Slayer was the name for the warrior caste of Infernals. But you're right," Mara said, glancing back. "Whoever made the prison crammed not just the Solar and quasi-Solar Exaltations inside. They got the Lunars, the Sidereals--they even managed to rip free and recompile the Terrestrial Exaltations that Gaia parceled out into bloodlines instead of individuals. I don't think anyone even realized how that had worked until it was undone, but Gaia modified the same original creations that Autochthon gave her, no differently from Luna or Ignis Divine or the Maidens. She just did, well, more to them." She studied Lilah's expression carefully. "You don't know any of this, do you? Well, releasing the Exaltations is certain to cause all manner of chaos, but it's necessary all the same. We need more than you, Faith, and one tween Abyssal."

"I can release them in a controlled manner, at least. We worked out how to free them one at a time." She didn't want the others released at all! There was already too much competition out there.

"I understand you like being all but unique, Lilah. And you may well be right. Free them gradually, use the most cooperative, if you think that will be helpful. But we need more." Mara turned a scowl on Lilah, making her heart rise into her throat. "Don't be greedy. I mean for you to be first in power, Lilah. You're perfect for the job."

"I see," she said with a confidence she didn't remotely feel. "I'll do my best."

"Then I'll do my best to get you home," Mara said sternly. "Until next time. There are more places you need to see."

*****

Angel had been walking the mad hellscape for what seemed like hours. At least the sun didn't burn him. He'd discarded the wrappings the two of them had used to help keep the sun off during the day. The green light here felt warm, even comfortable--if not remotely safe. He'd been up towers until they emerged out of the ground. He'd been swallowed and shat out in a different layer by a creature that looked disturbingly like Acathla. He'd been through doors that didn't even seem to exist till he was on top of them.

"I'm going to ask again," he said, cracking his knuckles. This time the patrons bothered to sit down their glasses. Spike glanced up at him, smirking. "Does anyone know the name Buffy Summers?"

"How much is it worth to you?" The being in front of him looked human...almost. Its eyes were dead black, its skin paler than his or Spike's, and it had no scent. Beyond that, it was a hulking bruiser of a man, jet black hair dangling to his waist. There was something familiar about it, but Angel couldn't place where he had seen a similar creature.

"How much is it worth to you to not be beaten to death?" Angel pulled out the lead truncheon he'd acquired. "Come on, is it really worth this much trouble to keep quiet?"

"A round on me for anyone who speaks up," Spike shouted. "He's got the stick, I'll give the carrot. No strings attached!"

"A round of what?" snarled an apelike creature with horns jutting from its back. "We're tired of the pegedu-piss they serve around here."

Spike shrugged. "What's good with you folk? We're new here." This produced a round of derisive snorts. Spike and Angel were clearly demons; they might be from an unfamiliar region, but there was no question they had to be from Malfeas.

"What d'you think's good?" queried a thing that looked suspiciously like a M'Fashnik demon. Probably it was one, but it was hard to say. "Get us some bleedin' chalcanth and we'll talk."

With a chuckle, Spike turned to the bartender, a hard-bitten purple succubus of a sort Angel had seen frequently around here but didn't recognize, a double row of rings pierced through her upper and lower lips. She stared at him flatly. "You want chalcanth? I want coin, pal. No service for no money."

Spike gave out a long sigh and turned to Angel. "You wouldn't happen to have any money on ya, bloke?" Angel turned out his pockets and shrugged. "I guess we do it the fun way." Angel gave him a tight smile.

And the fight was on.

*****

The spire ended, after a fashion at least. The stone of it continued on up into infinity, so far as Lilah could tell, but it was no longer a mountain to walk up. It became a pole to climb. Above that, it continued to thin out.

"Eventually," Mara said, "I'm told it becomes a wire so thin it can slice adamant in pieces. It's a symptom of the fragmentation of the world. I've read your Stephen Hawking's book, how he proposes that the universe is finite but unbounded. The new Yozis, the half-worlds that formed from the ancient Infernals, are opposite that: infinite, but bounded. This Qaf continues up forever, just as the true Qaf did--but no one can climb much higher than this."

"You want me to fix that. Somehow." Lilah rubbed her brow. She felt as if she ought to be sweating, though she hadn't done that in weeks. "And if I told you I haven't the slightest idea how?"

Mara tapped her hooves impatiently. "You will. Or another Exalt will. Lilah, you need to understand this: your limitations are gone. That was the whole point of Exaltation, to carve away the human limits that prevented the defeat of the Yozis by such tiny beings." Her blue eyes pierced Lilah through. "I brought you here to show you things you would never have encountered in your own world. Reality itself is not what you are familiar with. There is power in your mundane world of paperwork and court rituals; you know this already. But you needed to see for yourself what lies beyond that limited reality."

"And you're showing me this why exactly?"

"Thousands of years ago, I set Brigid on the path to creating sorcery. She was an imperfect vessel, a Solar, a weapon aimed at the heart of my masters. You are an Infernal, and I mean for you to recreate sorcery in your image, Lilah. I want to see you wield magics that would make Brigid tremble. You are a woman of your time, a child of an era that has forgotten demons and spirits but that has built wonders even without the Essence that the ancient Exalts depended on. You will shake the world, Lilah, and you will remake it." She tilted her face up and kissed Lilah on the forehead. "Go home. Use your company's library and study hard. Recombine the knowledge you find there and surpass it."

"How do I get home from here?"

"You could do it," Mara said, "but I'm going to leave you with an enigma instead. Besides, why wait for you to fumble through it?" She took Lilah by the shoulders with a wrenching motion. Off-balance, Lilah toppled off the slope and into the endless white.

*****

"You could have been killed!"

Angel hung his head. "We won the fight."

"Yeah," Spike echoed. "I don't see the problem." Angel grunted softly. They were on their knees in front of her, hands chained behind their backs.

"You picked a fight in Octavian's territory," Buffy said, taking each of them by an ear. "Do you have any idea who or what Octavian is? They call him the Living Tower, and not because he's part of the landscape the way some demons are. He's a warrior demon who's only ever been defeated twice."

"Well, maybe we wanted to be the third time," Spike grouched.

"He's got the skull of a Solar in his belt buckle," Buffy almost shouted. "Do you have any idea how insignificant you are to him? Hell, you're lucky you don't rate with him or he might have actually taken the time to beat you to death. Sure, maybe you'd have found a way. You've kicked a lot of butt, I know. But what if you hadn't? You'd have died here and nobody would've ever known what happened to you."

"Could you beat him?" Spike asked, his tone suddenly becoming snide. "I mean, this isn't about--?"

Buffy set her mouth. "I don't have to beat him," she said stiffly. "I asked him to bring you to me--asked him nicely, I admit--and he did."

"You asked a demon nicely." Angel found that difficult to believe. Buffy couldn't have changed that much.

"She's learning," said one of the purple-skinned succubi who seemed to be following Buffy wherever she went these days. She looked a lot younger than the one who'd been tending bar, though it was hard to say what was different about her. More hope in her expression, perhaps. "Octavian wasn't very respectful, but he has a right not to be. He's much more powerful. And he did do what she asked."

"Thank you, Aphrodisia," Buffy said softly. "These are my friends. Sort of," she said, looking at Spike. "I'm not too happy with them right now, but I'd appreciate it if you'll be nice to them." Aphrodisia flinched as if she'd been slapped, but Buffy didn't seem to notice.

"Running with a strange crowd, these days, aren't we, Slayer?" Spike evidently didn't know when to quit.

"I could introduce you to my blood-ape employees," Buffy said. "You might get along with them better. I'm sure they'd be happy to beat you to a pulp and lock you up for me if you make trouble, too. Or I could just have Aphrodisia set you on fire. Sound like fun?"

"I've had better times," Spike mumbled under his breath.

"Look," Buffy said sternly, "in another hour you'd have missed me entirely. I'm leaving to conquer a city called Gem." Angel jumped.

"Conquer a city? Buffy, why?"

She met his eyes cautiously. "Because those are my orders," she said, voice firm. "I'm good at following orders. You know me." Her tone changed slightly. "Gem is under the rule of someone called the Despot. He lives up to his name. I can't possibly make Gem's situation worse, except maybe for the folks rolling in money."

"An' you're gonna be the next Despot, is that it?" Spike seemed to have gotten that something was up from the moment Buffy said she was following orders.

"If I have to be. I'm hoping I don't have to be. More to the point, you two do realize that demons can't leave Malfeas on their own, right? They have to be summoned. And I haven't got the slightest idea how to summon a vampire, because, surprise surprise, vampires don't actually seem to exist yet." Buffy tapped her toes grouchily. "I am literally having to invent a ritual from scratch to get you guys out of hell. Be glad I'd like to have your help, okay?"

"You're inventing a ritual?" That didn't seem like Buffy. She wasn't the inventive type. Smarter than most people took her for, but not when it came to that sort of thing.

She bent down and looked him in the eyes, very closely. "I am inventing a ritual. From scratch. Because I can be just as smart as I can be strong. Angel, whatever else this place has done to me, it's also helped me understand what I am. That matters to me, okay?"

He understood that much. "Of course, Buffy. Have you managed to let any of the others know where you are or what's going on?"

Buffy shook her head immediately. "I haven't been able to reach any of you since I came to Malfeas. I haven't seen Fred or Xander in longer than that. I'm sorry, Angel. If you were trying to find someone, I'm not much help. Look, I'm running low on time. I've got to go work out that ritual, and then I've got to meet with some cultists in Gem. I'll bring you two and the girls over as soon as possible, okay? In the meantime, Aphrodisia, I trust them with anything in my townhouse."

"Does that include us, mistress?" Aphrodisia waggled her bare eyebrows at Spike. Well. No accounting for taste

"Only if you're interested, Aphrodisia. I trust them not to try anything if you're not." Buffy glared at Spike. "I know your chip won't stop you. Fear of me better do the job, okay?"

"You've got it, Slayer." As she left, Spike looked at Angel. "Odd, innit?"

Angel looked back at him. "That she's concerned about demons?" He turned to look at the retreating Slayer. "Yeah. That's new. Um...Aphrodisia? About these chains?"

She heaved a long sigh. "Dharma will like you, I think. But don't be gentle. You'll bore her."

If Angel could have blushed, he would have.

*****

**_Morning, sleepyhead._ **

Lilah opened her eyes groggily. _You weren't...were you in control?_

_**Alone with my thoughts. Couldn't even open your eyes. Not sure how we got back.** _

_The last thing I remember is spinning out into the void._ Lilah checked all her fingers and toes. Everything was intact, including the clothes she'd had on when she left the party. She should have been in a gown, or nude, depending on her mood when she went to bed.

_Likewise. Mara sure knows how to slam her lessons home. Can we get up? I don't know about you, but I enjoy seeing the sun._

There was something to that. Lilah sat up and gave herself a bit of a shake. No point in being at less than her best. She checked herself in the mirror, forcing her eyes to see herself instead of Darla. Good, good. Looking good was easy now. She ran her fingers through her hair, patted her face with water a bit, and strolled out onto the balcony of her apartment. _Sunglasses. Shit, I forgot the sunglasses!_ She had to duck back in and grab them. That was one of the few things she shared in common with Buffy; she had to keep her sunglasses on pretty much whenever she was outside. At least she was too old to look like a valley girl.

 _ **She wants us to free more of the...Exaltations**_ , Darla thought. _**It wasn't what we had planned, though, and I'm not sure how good it is for us. Not all of them are corrupted, just like we told Travers.**_

"It would be good to have a little help if we could rely on it," Lilah said softly, but aloud, "but how can we trust even the corrupted ones? And Mara knew more about the one that got away than we do. She said something about a tween Abyssal...whatever an Abyssal is."

_**Think we can get her on our side? Hell, maybe we can still get Faith on our side with the right act.** _

It was a possibility. No more loose Exalts, just the three of them. And presumably Buffy. "Why didn't she mention Buffy?"

_**You've got me.** _

*****

Angel emerged, gasping, from the desert sands. Five days trekking across the fucking desert back from Malfeas after all the trouble he'd had getting there. At least he knew it was because Buffy had finally summoned him.

"Sorry," said the little girl in front of him. She had a ragged dress on, skin not quite black as basalt, dredlocks in her hair, maybe five or six years old. "I didn't think to take into account that it always takes five days this way. The ritual wouldn't work till it'd been enough time."

"Buffy?" This couldn't be Buffy.

"In the flesh. You saw me show up looking like Faith."

"You were off. It was a good enough copy to fool Giles for a second, but it didn't look that much like her. And it didn't...you even smell different, Buffy." He could feel the burst of sand next to him as Spike emerged.

"I want to look like a native," she said. "Like I'm from Gem, or somewhere fairly close. I didn't know I smelled different, though."

"Slayer?" Spike said in astonishment.

"Yes, Spike. It's an illusion. Technically. Somehow if you hit me in the head it's still my head. Not sure how that works, since I don't even come up to my own boobs, but it happens. Now stop flaking out, because I need to explain something while we have a moment alone, okay?"

Angel leapt immediately to the heart of it. "You can't really be serving the Yozis."

"Good one. Gem's government sucks. I mean to liberate it, my way. As for the Yozis...maybe destiny says I have to free them. It doesn't say I have to let them stay out long." She picked up a stake and made her characteristic stabbing motion with it. "I'm not even going to stick them back in prison. I'm going to finish what the Exalted should have finished last time. I don't know all the details yet, but I mean to have an army of us at my back, and I'm going to kill them all. It's what I do."

Angel saw Spike's mouth hanging open and realized he was doing the same. "Buffy, the Yozis--"

"Are horrific evil monsters who don't deserve to live. I'm not even started doing what they want and I'm already sick of it. You have no idea the number they've done on my brain. I'm just lucky Dawn's really not my sister. Next I might stop caring about you, Angel. Or Xander, or Willow, or anybody else." Her face crumpled up for a moment with anger and tears. "I'm going to end them. And if they turn into Neverborn like last time, I'll end those too."

"From what I've heard," Spike said very quietly, "even the Exalted host couldn't wipe out the Neverborn."

"They weren't trying hard enough," Buffy snarled. "I don't care if I have to nuke the Underworld. I'll find a way. I'm going to kill them all. Starting with the Ebon Dragon."


	16. Teachers and Lessons

The heat hit her like a furnace, and she barely noticed. She'd spent the last five years living at the mouth of hell. Also in Southern California. It was hot here, hot and dry, and she could feel the sweat gush from her pores. Still...it was, as they said, dry heat. The moisture evaporated at once, leaving her stinky but dry. How had she not picked up that ability of Sulumor's by now?

The walls of Rankar Peak's crater would have seemed to tower over her head two weeks ago, but she had spent that time living in the shadow of literal skyscrapers made of brass and stone. The stone cliff dwellings that lined its walls were picturesque, but no more impressive. Dust blew through the air, the wind whistling between minor peaks and through alleyways. If the houses weren't clustered so thickly together, it might have felt like a gold rush town out west--which it sort of was, really. Well, that, and the only ones she had ever seen were ghost towns; Gem was as bustling as it could possibly be this time of day. "I need me one of those firedust weapons," she said to herself.

"A simple matter," Garima said. The akuma made Buffy twitchy. She seemed genuinely nice, even nicer than Sulumor or Cyan, and she was always able to find anything that was for sale, but according to Cearr the demon lords could overwrite her personality any time they chose. In fact, even as matters stood, she was an assassin so cold-blooded that nothing about her shifted when she killed. "It seems a waste, though. You could have brought better with you." A flamethrower-slash-pistol, and the kind Garima was talking about shot hellfire.

"Eh. I'm not really a fan of guns. Fits the atmosphere is all." She would consider it. There _was_ a little bit of appeal in the idea of being the fastest draw in the South. "Are we ready for the gathering?"

"We are," Garima said, flatly. "I still do not approve. Yozi cults operate in secret, Buffy. This is how we survive. Nowhere in Creation tolerates open worship of the True Creators."

"And we'll keep doing that," Buffy explained for the umpteenth time. "We are not going to put up handbills saying, 'Come pay honor to Malfeas the Demon City.' What we are going to do is open up the _revolution_. There are thousands of people in Gem who are hanging on by the skin of their teeth. Malfeas would probably be an improvement, from their perspective. We bring them in by offering freedom and security. Then we reveal who gave it to them." She wasn't actually going to do that part, at least not in the way the akuma wanted, but Gem was desperate for a revolution. A real one this time--at least, she hoped. She knew enough about Gem's history, and her own, to know a lot of revolutions just turned into "meet the new boss, same as the old boss," and that it wasn't as simple as having good intentions.

Maybe, just maybe, it could be as simple as being Exalted. She doubted it, though.

"I don't see how you can accomplish what you're suggesting," Garima queried. "Too many people here believe they're one lucky strike away from being rich. It happens too often, and yet not often enough."

Buffy nodded. "We're going to _use_ that, Garima. We're going to give them that lucky strike--we're going to hit the Sun Market. They make incredible profit, and I take over."

"The Sun Market? But the guards--" Garima's eyes nearly popped. "And they're only open during the heat of the day. Heat kills here, Slayer."

"We're going to get around all that. I'm still working on fixing the heat problem, but leave the guards to me. We're going to seize the richest assets in town. Then we're going to properly arm the masses. And last, we storm the Despot's palace." There was more to it than that, of course. A great deal more. She didn't trust the akuma with the rest, though. She could be trusted not to betray the Yozis, and that was the biggest problem.

"And your eyes, Slayer?" There was an issue. Buffy had habitually worn sunglasses whenever possible in Sunnydale. They were fashionable, and she'd had not the foggiest idea that there was anything supernatural wrong with her eyes. She had good night vision and it made it harder to see in daylight--what was strange about that? But sunglasses were harder to come by here.

"I'll find something. Or make something." Tinted glass wasn't too hard to find here, and she was enjoying the new aspects of being a Slayer. Running faster than anyone on the track team, beating up football players with ease, and using any weapon she laid her hands on were all utterly cool...for the first couple of years. That she could do more than that, [I]be[/I] more than that, was frightening, but it was an amazing rush, too. "I'm not sure what exactly, but it's a trivial problem." People had operated in the deep desert and the tundra for centuries; there were harder things than blocking out a little sun.

Buffy closed the curtains. The heat didn't change perceptibly, but it cut the light to almost nothing. "I've spent my life hiding what I am, and I didn't even know there was anything wrong with me. I'm tired of hiding, Garima. When we move--and we will move within the week--I'm going to do it openly. If the Realm notices, so much the better. I want them to see us."

"Won't they send the Legion to crush us? The Realm has tolerated Gem because it doesn't challenge their rule or their faith." Garima seemed genuinely frightened at the idea, as well she should be. As a Dragon-Blooded traitor, she'd be one of the first to die.

"They won't get the chance. The Realm is going to suffer the death of a thousand pinpricks, Garima." She had figured out that much of the plan herself. True, by making her take point, the Yozis or their Third-Circles likely meant her to draw the Realm's first blows, but there were ways around that. "They'll be stung by so many rebellions and invasions that they have no idea what to defend against or what's coming next." And she knew something that even the demon lords likely didn't know. In her last couple of days in hell, word had come of a fantastic city rising out of the sea in the far West with a cephalopodian anima banner shining above it. That had to be Fred. LIkely Xander, too, though there was no way to be sure. They were outside the Yozis' plan, and they had beaten Buffy to the punch. Hopefully they had the firepower to hold off Realm assaults from there. "I'm going to go speak to our people. Tell them to be ready."

Garima bowed deeply. "Our prayers are with you, Slayer. Go with Malfeas."

Buffy offered her best toothy grin. "My thoughts exactly."

**Chapter 16: Teachers and Lessons**

Anya feinted left, then lashed out with a kick.

Chejop Kejak wasn't there. He wasn't even in the ring. Anya blinked. Was there even a person by that name? Wait. Who was she fighting, anyway?

A blow landed in her gut, knocking her to the floor. Chejop Kejak stood over her. "You see the difficulty, then. That was, admittedly, a very advanced technique, known as 'Without Assumption', but I could have defeated you in dozens of ways. Your unarmed combat skill is real, but it is the accumulation of a thousand years of periodic brawling. There is much you must unlearn before you can begin to learn."

"Okay, then. I never said I was going to be a great student. I thought you were going to use a spell on me." She was still in the dark as to why Chop-job Carjack was even trying to train her. He wanted her dead. She knew this; she could read it in his every expression.

"I fully intend to do so, Anya, but first I want you to understand both why it's necessary and why I don't mean to simply insert supernatural power into your brain as well." Kejak fell easily into a fighting stance. A stiff breeze should have been able to blow over such a frail old man, but she knew better than to believe the appearance. "Even once we begin, I cannot simply transfuse you with everything you will ever need to know. Alas, life is not so simple even for us. Your long life has provided you with a great deal of skill and knowledge, Anya, but it took place in some other realm. You do not speak the ancient language of this place nor do you know its ways."

"I know. Fish out of water. I'm a quick study, Sifu. Just...I'm ready for you to hit me with it. I want to get this Exaltation thing up and running so that I can keep up with my friends." Not how she should have put it; he wanted her friends dead. But it was what she wanted, and she was no good with the whole subtlety thing.

It must have shown in her expression. "You don't know why I'm wasting time on you, do you? Would you like to know?"

"You can't seriously believe you'll get me to join the Bronze Faction, Mister Kejak. My orgasm friend is a Solar, a Lunar got us here, and you still haven't told me exactly what an Infernal is because apparently you don't know but Buffy is a good friend of mine and a good person. You're telling me they're all evil."

"I'm telling you no such thing." Chejop, unfazed by her torrential speech, began performing some sort of kata. "I expect that your friends are all people of good character. As was my friend, Tammuz Ushun, who once led the Gold Faction. As was my lover before the Usurpation, a Lunar named Galea. As were several other friends whom I was forced to betray. Solars, Lunars, fellow Sidereals--do you not see this, Anya? I have sacrificed my personal life, my relationships, over and over for the greater good, and few, if any, of those people were malicious or hateful or even particularly careless, at least in the beginning. The Solars were mad, not wicked."

Anya forgot herself sufficiently to try a sweep kick on the old master, who ignored it. Not even "evaded it"--ignored it completely as the blow passed by without affecting him. "You're going to have to explain the difference."

"I don't doubt that Xander, for instance, is a man of heroic temper, who stands for everything he believes to be right and good. You say he fought demons without any abilities beyond the ken of mortals, and I believe you. I expect that for decades he may well continue in that vein. But Xander does not have decades before him. In principle, he has millennia. The hidden flaw in his Exaltation must inevitably consume him, and by the time it does so he will be too powerful to easily defeat. Wait for him to go mad, and risk him countering your every attempt to depose him? Or simply never let him rise to power? Which is the prudent choice?"

Anya began trying to perform the kata Chejop was doing. It was much more complicated than it looked. "You really believe you can persuade me to turn on Xander. Without any special mind mojo."

"It will hurt you, Anya. I make no bones about that fact. But you will do it." Chejop changed the motions he was making, shifting to a form that involved some painful-looking hand gestures. "I know that you will do it, because you want to please him. What would Xander want? To die as himself, knowing that the world was safe from him? Or to become a dangerous, monstrous creature capable of ripping the tapestry of existence to shreds? You're not that petty, Anya, to choose a few years of love or sex over your partner's wishes. Are you?"

"I'm not," Anya said petulantly. "Though I have to say my friends would probably say at this point that it's time to look for a third option." She tried the hand gestures, which didn't work out spectacularly well.

"These are to limber up your fingers," Chejop said quietly, trying to be helpful. "This is not a form required to be exact."

"Right. Sorry." He had broken her train of thought, which was probably exactly what he intended. "Look, Sifu. You keep acting like I'm going to tell you you made a mistake. That you should have trusted the Solars to make everything somehow come out all right with a little guidance. I'm not going to say that. You made the call, and it was the right one, because the world's still here. It may not have been the only right call, but it was _a_ right call. You see that? Buffy could have killed Dawn. She could have killed Angelus sooner. She could have blown up Adam with a bomb the way she did the Mayor. As long as the bad guy doesn't win and the world survives the call is right. The Gold Faction says you were wrong not to take the risky road, and that's stupid."

Chejop actually seemed to be listening to her for once. He shifted his posture, as if holding shears to cut someone's fate thread with. "Interesting line of argument. Certainly I've never heard it from someone who was in love with a Solar. How then can you agree that I was right without the logical action being to turn in your 'orgasm friend'? I acknowledge that your emotions are doubtless a factor."

Maybe she couldn't reach him. He was five times her age, and had been Exalted for most of it. He was months from death, and why change his mind now? He was at least as powerful as she'd ever been or more.

But damned if she wasn't going to try. "You made the right call...fifteen hundred years ago. Before the Great Contagion. Before the Fair Folk invasion. Before the Solars coming back and the deathknights appearing. I haven't heard any stories about more Great Prophecies. Just tell me one thing. Is this the future you saw? Plague and war and death and new enemies that you don't know how to beat? If it is, why didn't you plan ahead for any of it? If it's not, then why the hell didn't you say things had gone off course and make new prophecies? What about all these beings that are outside of fate? Couldn't they have thrown it all off by now?"

The ancient Sidereal scowled, but not at her. He looked...troubled. Had it worked? "No," he said at last. "I didn't see any of this in detail. As far as I know, no one saw past the Shogunate in the Vision of Bronze. I tried, Anya. I tried to unify us, to make better plans. In that, I do regret having failed."

"Chejop. You're the most powerful man in the world. How did you fail? And if even you couldn't succeed...." He wasn't going to change for this alone, but she had at least found a chink in his armor.

"You can't be saying that the answer is to let the Solars run free. Let alone Deathknights, and these new...Infernals you speak of. They brought disaster on the world, came within inches of destroying it." Without warning his kata broke, and his hands scissored shut on her arm.

Anya cried out, but she kept her feet. "And they saved it, too, a thousand times over. The Prophecy was fulfilled. You saved the world from them, kept it going for a millennium and a half. But don't you see? The crisis passed, and you never thought to change again. The world doesn't work that way!" She struggled in his grip, finally lashing out, bringing her left knee up into his groin. It struck home, but he didn't seem to notice. "I had a vision once, of a world where everyone was equal. I killed a royal family for it. I brought civil war and mass death and prison camps. And in the end? It failed. Marx's vision was a lie, a dead end. You were lucky enough to have a real prophecy, Sifu, but you've been following its vision for hundreds of years _too long_!"

His hands closed on her throat. "I could annihilate you with a touch, Anya. Do you know that? I could erase your ability to speak any language ever again. I could turn you into a rabbit." She cringed, knowing that would give away her phobia but unable to rein in her terror. "Who are you to speak to me like this? What are you? And why should I let you live?"

The terror crystalized and vanished, clarifying into a moment of absolute peace. He could do any of that. No answer could save her; no answer would damn her, either. If he wanted to do those things, he would. "I know what I am," she said. "I'm an ending. And you should let me live because you can't keep out new ideas forever. The real question, Ketchup, is what are you?"

His grip released, and he gave her a startling white smile. "I am...hmm. That is the question, isn't it?" He took her left hand in his right. "All right. I'm not so easy to persuade as that, but you have my attention, Anya. Time for your first real lesson. Come with me."

Anya followed, rubbing her throat. "My first real lesson?"

"Your mastery of Violet Bier of Sorrows Style is limited by your mastery of unarmed combat. As I said, you're a brawler. Not a bad brawler, given how much experience you've had, but you have little concept of forms or stances or any of that. You fight intuitively, which is not a bad thing in every respect, but it limits you." Chejop raised his hands. "It would take months to begin to teach you proper mundane martial arts the conventional way."

"So we're going to bypass that." Chejop nodded, and Anya swallowed hard. "The my-mind-to-your-mind bit." The old man pulled out a pair of seats. "How long?"

"Each session will take an hour. My joints have begun to bother me, which is not a promising sign. Age touches an Exalt's appearance lightly and their health almost not at all, till the end. Of course, I knew it was coming. We'll sit."

"Even knowing that I don't agree with you, you trust me enough to teach me?" She didn't begin to understand this man. Which made sense, she supposed.

"If I only taught those who agreed with me on every point, I'd have no students at all. Come now. And don't worry that I will reprogram you into an obedient faction member--this doesn't work that way." He sat down in one of the chairs. "You interest me. You appear just before my death, with a destiny that could not have been foreseen until you arrived in this world. Yet it must have been written in Samsara. You might be the world's doom, of course. It was foretold that my life would see the ending of two ages. Or you could just as easily be its savior, and I can't very well kill that, can I?"

"But you can try to decide which it'll be?" She sat facing him, their toes just touching. He extended his arms and took hold of hers above the wrist; she clasped his arms as well.

"I can. I think I should. Who else could?" He chanted a brief invocation in a language she didn't recognize. Sparks gathered, rising up around him, and began to flow toward her.

The world within his mind opened its gates and closed them behind her.

*****

Fred _breathed in_. "Awesome," she said very softly. Sage of the Depths had simply laughed when she asked if this was really a good use of her powers.

"Do larger breasts make you feel more confident?" he had asked. She'd just nodded. "Then, aside from keeping track of how much essence you're using, why do you need to ask?"

Of course, there was more to prettying herself up than big tits, no matter what guys thought. Her butt had expanded to match, and her features had shifted a bit, and even her hair had developed a bit of natural curl. And too much boob would have made her a disaster.

The Sage hadn't seemed to notice. Perhaps he was gay, but he paid no attention that she could see to the young male Lunars either. She wasn't about to ask, lest she set off another brain-bleach inducing lecture about consent and the ability to speak with any animate life-form. She now knew more about the Scionborn than she had ever wanted to.

There were at least two dozen other new Lunars strolling about Luthe's lower decks right now. Something called a Grand Gathering had been called, and evidently Lunars were fairly r-selected--not many made it past their first few years, but those who did hung around for centuries. More would be here soon.

Fred slipped out of the cabin. She'd had to sneak out of her own quarters in roach form to avoid her adoring subjects--or her cringing ones, for that matter; the Shadow Swimmers in particular were terrified of her.

"--say the one who overthrew Leviathan is named Dreamer-of-Reason. He must be a powerful elder, but I've never heard of him." Fred winced. The dark young man in what amounted to swim trunks wasn't the first person she'd heard assume that she was some reclusive Lunar elder.

"He wouldn't be the first powerful hermit to come out of hiding," said the girl walking with him. Equally dark but with narrow eyes, she was probably in her late teens and wearing no more than he was. Fred was starting to get the idea that of all the Lunars in existence, she probably had the most body modesty. In the past day, she'd seen other Exalts wearing less than this or nothing at all. Many of them looked as if she wasn't the only one who'd augmented her looks, and a few weren't even identifiable as boys or girls in spite of their nudity. It wasn't about wrecked clothes; clothes just vanished when you changed. It could be a survivalism thing. Her original clothes had rotted off her in Pylea after her escape.

Should she--? No, she was who she was. If she could deal with other Lunars going naked, they could put up with her not.

Oh. They had spotted her watching. "Hi," she said weakly. "Fred. Here for the get-together."

"Renjin Shining Seas," the man said, smiling. "No deed name yet, or does it just embarrass you?"

"It does, kinda." Fred blushed. If they figured out who she was....

"Peleps Kolohi," said the woman. "Some people call me Jade Wave, but I've never been too comfortable with that myself. I don't guess you've met this Dreamer-of-Reason, have you? Sounds like a No-Moon, if you ask me. Powerful sorceror, maybe."

"Don't know a thing about them," Fred said as glibly as she could manage.

Kolohi frowned at her. "Why would you lie to me? You know him, don't you?" Shit! She must have some sort of lie detector going.

Fred closed her eyes and said squeakily, "I am him. Um, her."

Kolohi and Renjin stared at her for a moment before Renjin shook his head.

"And that _embarrasses_ you?"

"I'm not some mighty warrior hero," Fred tried. "I'm a theoretical physicist who got lost in the woods. In, um, an alternate dimension full of demons who wanted me as a slave."

Kolohi finally nodded at that point. "Now I understand. You didn't do it for glory or territory. You felt sorry for my lost cousins here."

"I Exalted facing off against a friend over the slavery around here," Fred said truthfully. "A lot of the Dragonblooded are bad people, but the Luthea had nothing to do with that."

"Fighting slavery is pretty common among future Lunars," Kolohi agreed. "I was keeping Skullstone pirates from taking my people, not that they appreciated it after. But your friend...?"

"Also Exalted," Fred explained. "I couldn't get through to her any other way, so I took a swing at her."

Renjin's jaw dropped. "Good thing you did Exalt. She could have torn you apart. And here I didn't think you had the guts to have taken on Leviathan. How did you beat him, anyway? You're not an ancient sorceror. Are you?"

"I just outthought him," Fred said, face crimson again. "I worked my way up to the command center as a bug, then tricked him into moving Islebreaker for me. After that I had control of the city defenses and things got much easier."

Renjin and Kolohi stared at her so hard they missed the band of sharkpeople who came around the corner to their left. The leader's eyes fixed on Fred, and he snarled, "Traitorqueen!" The renegade Scionborn lifted crude guns to point at her.

"Oh shit!" Fred muttered, and flung her hands in front of her face.

A line of silk web, glinting silver in the overhead lights, flew from her palm and snared the nearest gun. She wasn't so startled she didn't think to yank it away from the sharkman, but it was a near thing.

Kolohi was growing larger, changing into something massive and scaly. Her war form, no doubt, something bulky, with a cutting beak.

Renjin just snarled at the oncoming Scionborn. For a moment Fred thought it was some strange kind of bravado, but the rebels nearest him broke and ran, dropping their weapons in terror.

Fred took advantage of the distraction to fling her line sideways, latching it to the wall. Spiderman gestures plainly weren't needed to make the webs go, but they helped her confidence. In moments there were tripwires everywhere.

Kolohi had finished changing. Larger than the sharkpeople, she slammed a massive fist into one's face while several more futilely opened fire. Crude bullets spanged off her armored torso.

The sharkmen's fury gave way to panic, and they attempted to flee, but the weblines all over the floor brought them crashing down on top of each other in a twitching heap. Kolohi bit into several throats while Renjin began finishing others off with his dagger. Fred hung back reluctantly. As they reached the last one, she held up her hand. "Stop." Renjin side-eyed her, but the pair stayed back. "You aren't the last, I'm guessing. Go back to your friends and tell them Dreamer-of-Reason kicked your butts without half trying. You can't win this, and I don't hate you. Go back to your homes and live in peace, and I'll see that you're not persecuted."

"Better than they deserve," Renjin said doubtfully as the lone sharkman scuttled away.

"I'm not going to repeat Leviathan's mistake. I'm seeing that specific atrocities get punished and the Luthea get good jobs as fast as they can be educated for them, but I'm not going to persecute Scionborn for being Scionborn."

Kolohi shook her head skeptically. "If you don't, you're just going to end up with Luthea doing the dirtiest work like before and being told that they're free now so they don't have any right to complain." She swung her massive head back and forth as if searching for more threats.

Renjin nodded. "Reconciling people with their oppressors is a fool's dream. You have to pick a side and stick to it."

Fred made a face. "You're basically saying that peace is impossible. If I do that, the next generation of Scionborn will grow up seeing the Luthea as _their_ oppressors."

Renjin demurred. "They may see it that way, but that doesn't make it so. Justice is justice."

"I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree, because Luthe is my protectorate now." Fred didn't feel up to more confrontation just yet, not even the nonviolent kind. Kolohi just shrugged massively and began changing back. Renjin growled under his breath but said nothing. Abruptly Fred began to giggle as the tension broke.

"What?" Renjen asked.

"You wouldn't get it," Fred said, blushing a bit. Kolohi grumbled. "Oh, okay. We, um, match some of my people's heroic legends. The three of us are Spidergirl, Aquaman, and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle."

Her new friends looked blank. She had a lot to teach them.

*****

Dawn knew better than to be here, back in the seedy god bar sitting on a barstool. This was Glory, after all. This was the crazy hellgoddess who drove people insane and tried to kill her to rip open a portal home.

But she didn't _trust_ her. Right? This Glory didn't know her, had presumably never met her. And she was teaching Dawn to use her powers. If Dawn learned enough, she'd be able to protect herself, and it didn't seem like anyone else was going to be able to teach her. She wasn't Exalted, she was a raksha. Whatever that meant.

"Whatever you do, don't go around naked," Glory said, ignoring the nervous but bored entities that sat around them. "It _hurts_ to do that out here in Creation. But you can change clothes, if you wanna. It only takes a second."

"Change...clothes?" The idea made Dawn twitchy. Glory was talking about something called an "assumption" that seemed to have something to do with her body and how it was created, but it was more than that. It sounded like it might include her entire identity, and the idea of taking off "Dawn Summers" and turning into someone else--or no one at all--was beyond creepy.

Most of all because a nagging little part of her didn't agree.

"Look. Being somebody's sister is like an outfit you put on one day. And you're really used to it, and there's nothing wrong with that. But you can also put on 'being somebody's lover' or 'being someone's grandpa'. Or you can put on 'being a ghost' or 'being fire' or all kinds of other things. Mortals only understand a little bit of that stuff, and they usually do it all wrong. They try to be a bunch of things at once and it just turns into a confusing blend of shrimp and catfish and horses and flowers and bricks. You? You can be nothing but shrimp." Glory cocked her head to one side. "Got it? Wait, I know. You have a boyfriend?"

Dawn looked at her feet. "No." She wished Xander would notice her, but he was too fixated on Anya. And now that they were both Exalted there was no way that would ever change.

"But you wish someone was. I see it. You know why that is? Because you're a sister. You're just a sister. And whether he means to or not, he cares for you, I bet. Like a sister." Glory pulled up her legs underneath her. "If you want to be his girlfriend, you need to take off 'being a sister' and put on 'being a girlfriend'."

"Okay." Dawn thought about that. "But if I do that, won't I be everyone's girlfriend? I don't want to be Buffy's girlfriend. That would be weird."

"Why? You're not really related. And you wouldn't feel like her sister anymore. But no, you could be 'someone's girlfriend', and you'd be their girlfriend and not Buffy's. Other people'd still see you as hot...kind of a potential girlfriend...the way this guy sees you as a sister even though you're not his." A bartender passed by with a tray of drinks. Glory snatched two and handed one to Dawn. The bartender flinched and tried not to look at them. "Here ya go. Or, you know, you could choose 'be lord of the lions' instead. Or whatever. They're all in your wardrobe somewhere."

"But if I shouldn't undress here...." Dawn hesitated. She could just...redefine herself that easily?

"Look, you're right. Maybe you're not ready for that. Tell you what, let's try something simpler. You got anything fun on you? Armor, swords, cute pets?" Glory peered at her. "Aw, what a lovely widdle kiddy-cat."

"Huh?"

"She's hanging around you. She's cute, but she needs you to materialize her." She examined Dawn's ankles. "I could do it, but you wouldn't learn nothin'."

Dawn stared. She couldn't see a thing. The only kitty-cat around was the purely imaginary Miss Kitty Fantastico. Tara and Willow had talked about getting a kitten but decided there was too much risk of it getting hurt in the constant fighting. It was easy to imagine the little black kitten playing around her feet, batting around a ball of yarn, but she wasn't real. She'd never...been...

A ball of red yarn rolled out from behind Dawn's left foot. With a rustle of little claws and padded paws on the floor, a tiny black kitten darted after it and caught it between two adorable forepaws. Dawn gasped.

"Aww. Toldja. What's her name?" Glory bent down and gently picked up the ball of fuzz, scritching behind its ears.

"I...I..."

"Not you, silly. This wittle pretty kitty."

"Miss...Kitty...um, Fantastico." The kitten glanced at her briefly and resumed its purring as Glory stroked its back. "I created her?"

"Weeelll. Technically, I guess we don't know who created her. But you brought her into Creation. Anyone can see that." Glory tossed her to Dawn, who almost didn't catch her for fear she'd become a yowling ball of claws at the sudden motion. But Miss Kitty merely stretched out her legs in midair and landed peaceably in Dawn's grip. "She's clearly yours. You might have armor, too. Or weapons, or all kinds of other things. They'll manifest according to your current costume, so you'll keep looking like little sister. It's not a _bad_ aesthetic. You could just tweak it a little to start out. Be Buffy's big sister for a while? Sorry, I don't know too much about teaching these things. Most people just kinda know."

Dawn's insides were full of skittery things by now. Stroking Miss Kitty should have helped. Kitten. Kitten good. Please. Except that Miss Kitty had literally not existed except in her mind until five minutes ago. Even Buffy didn't seem to be able to do that.

Even Buffy couldn't give life. And she could.

She didn't have to let it change who she was.

"I've got to get things set up so my friends won't be scared for me. But I need to learn. Is there anywhere else we can go?"

And if, at the end of this, she decided this Glory was just as much a monster as the one who'd tried to kill her, she could do something else Buffy had never done and beat down her hellgod butt.

*****

Xander sat at the top of the tower and watched Fred with her newfound friends down below. "She's a lucky girl," he murmured.

"How do you mean?" Nelumbo asked. He was trying to avoid her since remembering Anya, but he couldn't seem to get away from her entirely. She'd taken to wearing longer clothes, especially when he was around, though she couldn't seem to get the hang of not looking good in them. Or maybe she didn't really want to.

"Fred's got other people to teach her. To tell her what being a Lunar means. I'm supposedly more powerful than she is, but I've got no one. Shaia lured me out here with promises that she could teach me, but then she stranded me on an island and bugged out. And then I forgot who she was. If I ever get my hands on her...." He halted. Xander wasn't sure what he would do to her, but it wouldn't be pretty.

"You seem reasonably clever at coming up with new uses of your power on your own," Nelumbo said, "as long as someone reminds you that it's possible. I suppose that I could teach you supernatural martial arts. They're among the relatively few powers that aren't linked to a particular type of Exalt so fully that others can't learn them. I could even teach you Solar Hero Style, if you wanted."

Xander leaned back against the wall. "I wouldn't object," he admitted, "but that still leaves me with some major gaps." To this Nelumbo could only nod her assent. "I don't know if I'm ever going to get back to my own world--I hope so--but I found out there that I like to build things. I'm good with my hands. I've been helping repair Luthe's ships, but I have to wonder if maybe I can do more than that."

Nelumbo smiled more warmly than he had ever seen on her before, even in the throes of passion. "Are you still sure you don't want to return to Autochthonia with me? You resonate with the Great Maker himself. You could be much more than a simple construction worker."

"I don't know," Xander admitted. "I worry that I'm too far down the rabbit hole as it is. But I can't rule it out, I guess. In the meanwhile, people tell me that Solars built the greatest wonders of the First Age, even the buildings. Maybe I can do some of that myself, y'know? It's funny, in my world construction work isn't something smart people are supposed to do."

Nelumbo pondered that, tapping her thigh. "I suppose I see it. Those who plan the buildings must have education, but not everyone who builds. If you thought only of the latter.... In Autochthonia, we--the Exalted, I mean--are the cities and our charms the buildings, so it's not something I thought of a great deal."

"I should be down there with her." Nelumbo stared briefly. Oh. He'd jumped subjects again. "We weren't close friends or anything, but we're links to each other's home. Only, she insisted this thing was Lunar business and I wasn't welcome there."

"This world's Exalted turned on each other long ago," Nelumbo said, her undertone bitter. "It's hard to imagine. My world has its failures, certainly, but the Exalted as a whole support one another. Even Adamants like me, who were made to operate in secret, back up the others."

"I wish I knew how it happened. You'd think there'd be people at least trying to put things back together, but nobody trusts anybody else any more. Last night I was telling this story from home to some of the cityfolk and all of a sudden Sage is staring at me like I've gone bonkers. Tells me not to make up tales." He tried to recall the words; his memory had improved just like everything else, it seemed. "Remember your futile attack on the Great Lord of the Dark! Remember his counterstroke! Remember! Even now the Hundred Companions are tearing the world apart, and every day a hundred men more join them!" Idly, Xander wondered if he'd ever find out how that series ended. "And the Sage of the Depths said, 'We investigated that long ago. The Yozis did nothing to corrupt the Solars.' I tried explaining that it was just a story, that it had nothing to do with your world, but he told me not to bring it up again."

"Who knows?" Nelumbo said. "It could be some distorted memory of the Primordial War. But as far as I know, the Sage is right. Autochthon is smart, but he makes mistakes. Everything he makes is always bleeding-edge, and there's no reason the Exaltations would have been different. Ours are the product of a more refined process, but he no longer takes an interest."

She dismissed it so easily, Xander had to wonder. But then, she was the one who actually knew something about this world. "I guess I should get back to the stuff I'm good at. I'm heading down to the shipyards. Feel free to come with." He didn't want her to, not really, but odds were she would.

Nelumbo shrugged and followed.

*****

“…slays king, ruins town, and beats high mountain down,” Fred finished.

“A deathknight,” Renjin suggested after a beat.

“Um,” Fred said. “Not really. I mean, that’s not the answer.”

“And why not?” Renjin asked. “Doesn’t that answer meet the conditions?”

“It's Metagaos,” Kolohi argued. “Deathknights don’t eat that much.”

“Time,” said a voice from behind Fred as she shifted her position on the bench. “The riddle is clearly meant to be a metaphor in accordance with the spirit of the game. The answer is time.”

“Point goes to the new girl,” Fred said. The girl who had come up behind her wore little beyond her moonsilver tattoos. She was small, slender, and flexible, with bronzed skin and long straight black hair. She looked about sixteen. _Fucking Lunars._ Of course, sixteen-year-olds would likely go naked if they were allowed, but they shouldn’t be allowed. Responsible adults should tell her off. Fred was too anxious to try yet, but she would if it came to that.

“Dreamer-of-Reason?” the new girl queried. “I heard you were looking for someone to teach you sorcery.”

“Sort of?” Fred folded her arms. “Sage thinks I should. I’m still not sure it’s a good idea, but I’m willing to try.”

“Then I’m willing to teach you,” the girl said.

Must be another prodigy. Or choosing to look like a child but go around naked. _Fucking Lunars!_ Maybe she was from some jungle tribe though. “Call me Fred,” she said. “I’m not used to the other yet.”

“Well met,” the girl said. “I’m Roxy.” Cool. A nice modern name!

*****

“Wow,” Anya said when the room stopped spinning. “I know kung fu.”

“Is that what it's called?” Chejop said mildly. “I’m not familiar with the term.”

“Eh, it’s not even a real martial arts style. Stupid British misunderstood the word. But it’s a saying now.” If she was going to be a valkyrie, even in the Maidens' jokes, it was about time she learned proper fighting. “So what's the price on these lessons?”

“Price? No price,” Chejop started. “Wait. No deception, Anya. I hope to gain your trust and loyalty, and yes, you may construe that as a price if you like.”

“Thank you for saying that up front,” Anya said gratefully. And what if he didn’t get it? “Key to good customer relations: honesty about pricing.”

Chejop's lips tightened in the way that meant he was trying to maintain his serious sifu face. “It’s time for you to pass beyond dabbling, Anya. Do as I do, and I will show you Violet Bier of Sorrows Form.”

“Planning to teach me the whole style?”

“I hope to,” the man who wanted to kill her confided. “But I have been prevailed upon. If you want to know Throne Shadow Style, no one is better suited to teach you than I.”

“All right,” Anya said determinedly. “You’re on.”

*****

“Dawn,” Tara said with a worried frown. “We know you've been slipping out. Where have you been?”

Willow sat down opposite her. “No one’s angry,” she said urgently. “Just worried.”

“I found a library,” Dawn explained. “If this place is so dangerous, don’t we need to know all we can about it?”

“It’s a good idea,” Tara admitted. “You should have told us first, though. You of all people ought to know not all gods are friendly.”

“I know,” Dawn said solemnly. There really was a library. With luck, she could lose them in the stacks. Their reaction to seeing Glory would be even worse than here had been; they could fight her. Not that she blamed them.

But she needed to know what she could do. She’d already been used once to almost end the world. That couldn’t happen again. Dawn never intended to be helpless again. Not ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: "Roxy" is in fact 1500 years old or so. There will be no sexy scenes or detailed descriptions of her, but canonically she does go naked.
> 
> This is probably the last chapter before I go on hiatus to move.


	17. You Know It's Gonna Be All Right

They were only colored glass. Easy to come by, as it turned out. Buffy turned the lenses over in her hands. She'd carved them out with brass-coated nails. Angel would have shivered reflexively at the idea, If that particular reflex hadn’t atrophied ages ago. She’d come a long way in the couple of months they'd been here. Maybe in a direction she should never have gone.

She had carved the frames the same way, from wood that had been more expensive than the glass, here. That should have been good enough, but she was insisting on extra steps. It looked like overkill to him. When he’d said that, she’d looked thoughtful and nodded, then added another layer of decoration to the design.

Buffy held the frames over the pot of molten metal. It was only gold. By smithing standards, the liquid was positively chilly. Not by the standards of human flesh, though. She took a deep breath and plunged the frames into the pot, hand and all. Angel gasped. Why that reflex, of all the ones he might have kept? She pulled her hand free, dripping with gold, and plunged it into a water bath. The frames cooled at once. They'd never been exposed to oxygen long enough to burst into flame. Buffy's hand…. Grimacing, she peeled a thin layer of gold away. Her hand wasn't even red.

“Stones,” she said. The frightened gemcutter handed her the bag, and she began setting them into the slots carved into the frame. The glass would come last. “Malfeas will be pleased with you,” she said sternly. “Also me.” The woman nodded obsequiously and retreated to the corner.

“All this for a pair of sunglasses?” Angel said, shaking his head.

Buffy just shrugged. “If you’re gonna do something, you gotta do it right. Right?”

Angel shrugged back. The glasses were going to be gaudy as hell.

Buffy slid them, still steaming, onto her face. She didn’t even flinch, just stared into the glowing molten metal. “Perfect.”

**Chapter 17-You Know It's Gonna Be All Right**

A long time ago, Buffy thought, this must have been another market. Deep in the slums of the city now, the open area was lined with boarded-up buildings and scattered with tumbledown stands. There weren't as many people as she'd have liked, but several hundred would do. Starlight shone down on them, but the moon had vanished behind the crater walls.

"Gem promised you wealth," she declared. "Wealth and freedom. And some people have gotten it. It's true, if you strike it rich, the Despot doesn't take that much of it from you." Spike and Angel stood to her right. To her left were Aphrodisia and Spinel. Bound demons weren't too common anywhere, but they were a fact of life; nobody gave the neomah a second glance.

"But how many people actually make it that way? A trickle. Just enough to keep you hoping and waiting." She stalked back and forth in front of the crowd, who had taken seats on the ground or the broken stands. "I say there's enough to go around. I say you work hard enough to deserve something more than gruel to eat and a place to sleep in a collapsing building."

The crowd stirred. A few people shouted when she said they deserved more, but it didn't seem like much of a reaction. "I can beat the Despot without you. He's just a man, with an army of men. I've fought that before. What I'm offering you, though, is a chance to get in on the ground floor. One way or another, I'm going to be the new ruler of Gem."

That got their attention, though it earned some disgusted scoffing as well. "Tomorrow I hit the Sun Market. I can do it with what I have. I don't have to offer you the chance to arm yourselves and strike it rich. I don't have to let you join my army, but I will." Now they were stirred up. "You want to be a citizen of the new Gem? You want to be part of my army, my government, my revolution?"

Shouts rang out. She could do this. She'd led teenagers against a giant snake demon and an army of vampires. This was going to be a cakewalk by comparison. "If that's what you want, come stand to my right. Make a line."

Some walked away. She expected that. The Sun Market was going to be a hard target to strike. But well over half began filing immediately to her side, and more saw the number she'd gathered and joined in. When the line was good and started, she turned to the nearest. "Welcome to the new Gem, citizen." Maybe not all would stay for this, but she meant to go through it for each one, make them feel valued. She needed them. She touched the young woman on the shoulder and pointed her to the doorway behind them. There was a twisty passage to the cult hideout back there.

"Welcome to the new Gem, citizen." Some of these people were no more than children! "Hey, kid, maybe you should go home."

"What home? I'm with you." She could semd him away. It might save his life. Then again, it might not.

"Welcome to the new Gem, citizen." She pointed him to the door and moved on down the line. "Welc--"

The next in line was Aphrodisia.

Buffy came to a halt. What did the demoness want from her? "I know you're with me, Aph. What--?"

"So am I a citizen or what?"

Buffy could hear Angel coughing furiously and Spike laughing under his breath. She couldn't--it went against everything she'd ever--

So was she really prepared to say no? She'd given Aphrodisia a name, treated her like a friend. The neomah would serve her regardless--she had to. But did Buffy have the right to make someone do that? And would she serve nearly as well?

_("Who are you?" "No one.")_

Buffy took the leap. "Welcome to the new Gem, citizen." Spinel wasn't in line. She was wringing her hands near Spike. Buffy motioned the next person in line to wait and went over to the other neomah. "Welcome to the new Gem, citizen." Spinel's eyes went wide with fear and...was it hope? Buffy hoped too. She hoped that leap wasn't going to end in a broken neck.

Angel gave her a disgusted look as she went back to the line. A few people seemed to be leaving, but not as many as she'd feared.

Whatever she had to do.

*****

Angel met her at her cot. She hadn't been meaning to sleep long--perhaps an hour or two, maybe have a helpful dream. "I just greeted several hundred people one by one. I'm tired of talking."

"Tell me what that was back there."

"You know, most demons respect--"

Angel didn't let her finish. "I thought I knew you better than that. You can't trust her."

She folded her arms. "Maybe not. But you know what? I'm tired. I'm tired of fighting a war I can't win to kill people I like. I'll defend myself and my friends. I'll kill any demon who's actually dangerous, but--"

"And the one who isn't really your friend will blindside you." Angel was determined not to let her finish a thought, wasn't he?

"So if you're right, then what? I die. Another Slayer gets called. She fights and eventually she dies too. And so on. And on." Buffy sat down on the cot. "Where does it end? Angel, the Exalted here fought a war worse than anything we've ever had, but you know what they did after that? They made peace too. Maybe...maybe I can...."

Angel shook his head. "They made peace by locking the demons away, Buffy. They didn't make friends. They made a prison."

She squeezed her eyes shut, holding herself tighter still. "I'm not saying we can let the Yozis out, I just mean--"

"Why not? That's what the prophecy says, doesn't it?" Angel clamped his hands down on her shoulders. "Buffy, as much as I still love you, I will kill you before I let you do that."

"Try it," Buffy snarled, and shook him off. "Yes, they made a prison. Prisons have sentences that aren't eternity. Do you not understand that I can get tired of fighting?"

"Of course you can," Angel said placatingly, only to finish with, "but that doesn't mean you can just stop."

"Don't make me call Spike on you. Or the girls. They can set you on fire." Buffy didn't really want to shove him away; she just wanted support or nothing right now. "Or I could just hit you in the face and decapitate you." Why not? She could punch through solid rock. "Easy way to go."

Angel stepped away, but there was no flinchiness about the motion. "Rest then. But please, Buffy. Think about what you're doing."

"I will." There was no doubt about that.

*****

_Army as endless as the sea, far beyond what she could see. Army of twisted, gibbering things. Demons? At their head rode Dawn. "Vengeance," she said, and motioned the charge begin._

Fangs sunk into her neck. Betrayal. Pain. Darkness beneath the noonday sun. Red, red, the canals run red.

Her own reflection. Eyes flat and yellow as gold. No emotion, no mercy. No fangs?

Hand over her mouth. "Don't," Anya whispered. "Please don't." But how else could she go on?

Green eyes, red hair, skin fair as the day yet somehow glowing golden. Four arms? Never seen a man so beautiful in her life. Those eyes meet hers. He speaks. "I win."

She has no tongue to reply. Her flesh is blowing away in the wind. How could she not have known how painful it is to fall to dust?

*****

"Told me to wake you, Slayer. You had 'em worried. Bad dreams?" Spike leaned over her.

"I'd like to see you call Cearr that. And have you ever known me to have any other kind?" She pushed herself up onto her elbows.

"Dunno. Don't usually get to watch you sleep." His eyes narrowed just a hair. "You sure what you're doing with pretty and purple?"

Buffy groaned. "You too?"

"Just looking out for you, pet. Do what you got to do."

"Yes, Spike. I'm certain. Nervous, but certain. --And before you ask, no! The answer is no! Well...as far as I can remember anyway."

Spike rolled his eyes. "Wonder what brought that on then."

"You shut up!"

*****

The guards are growing drowsy. The day's worst heat is past. The final shift change is approaching, when they will trade off to sit in the shade and gulp water. Only a few Wyld mutants and Exalts among them could survive otherwise, and would not tolerate not receiving breaks with the rest.

Purple women's faces, pierced and hairless. No one bats an eye. Here, anything is for sale, even the services of bound demons. The neomah file slowly around the market's edge, led by a small child. No worries. They are bound, and not marottes or the like. They will do her no harm.

One by one the neomah take various positions in the market. The little girl nods to the last and wanders off.

Shift change. The guards begin to trade places. "Hey!" Everyone looks up. "I say Yozis, you say what!" A young Northern woman is standing on a rooftop, her fist thrust in the air, pumping up and down.

Some of those watching respond in confusion. "What?"

"That's it! I say Yozis, you say what!"

More people now, with an edge of apprehension. "What?" Everyone who knows what the Yozis are knows their worship is forbidden, and such things are best not discussed.

"V-I-C-T-O-R-Y! We're gonna fight in the hot-and-dry!" Instead of attacking, though, she thrusts her arms out to either side and begins some sort of musicless dance, tossing her hair from side to side, shaking her behind, leaping into the air as she kicks out both her legs.... "What's that spell? Victory! Victory! Let's go girls!"

The neomah join in, shaking, twirling, jangling bracelets and hoop piercings. Confusion reigns briefly before most of the guards conclude this is some kind of show. True, it's disrupting the shift change. With five neomah and a pretty young woman involved, most conclude they should get an eyeful before their bosses intervene.

The girl flings herself into a handstand and hurtles off the roof, soaring over their heads to stick a perfect landing on another roof across a relatively narrow part of the market. Strange, some of them admit. She must be an eccentric young Dragon-Blood. That explains it, though, and they go on watching.

"Go, warriors, go! Fight for what you know! We can't be too slow! Tell me what you know!" The Northerner and her demons have resumed their strange but sexy dance moves.

Most of the market responds with silence, but scattered cries come up here and there. "Freedom!" "Wealth!" "Revolution!"

An outright display of treason? Well, about ninety percent of the guards here are mercenaries in the merchants' pay. The Despot's men will deal with it.

The Despot's men don't seem to think trouble is actually imminent. They watch the show. If the Dragon-Blood actually starts something, they'll be as ready as mortals can. One or two hurry off to inform a superior that something odd is happening. No one readies a weapon.

The Northerner drops from the rooftops, gyrating her hips as she falls. Again a perfect landing. "I say Despot, you say what?"

"Buffy!" shout the neomah. Buffy? Is that a name or a condition?

"I say Despot, you say what?"

"Buffy!" Human voices join in this time, scattered through the marketplace.

"Despot!" The increasingly worrying Dragon-Blood shakes and bounces her way down the street.

"Buffy!"

"That's right! Despot!"

"Buffy!"

"You got it! Say my name!"

"Despot Buffy! Despot Buffy!"

Buffy--if that is the Northerner's name--flings herself into a series of cartwheels. This is not standard behavior for a usurper. Could she be some kind of herald working for one? He could be moving softly through the palace while this girl holds their attention.

No one dares take their eyes off her, though. A rogue Dragon-Blood could be extremely dangerous. Who is she working for? She dances down the main square, thrusting her arms and legs to the sky.

"What do we want?"

"Freedom!"

"How do we get it?"

"Revolution!"

"When do we start it?"

The obvious answer is "Now," but instead there is only silence. At the heart of the square several hundred of the Despot's soldiers suddenly feel knifeblades pressed against their throats.

Well, _shit_.

*****

"Easier than it should've been," Spike muttered. Night had fallen swiftly over the crater as the sun vanished behind its walls.

Buffy just nodded. "Most things are, for me. Ah, ah, I know what you meant. I'm watching for trouble. Still valid, though--things work that shouldn't, for people like me."

She had gathered a great pile of crates full of firedust in the center of the market with some help from her people, and surrounded them with a ringed wall of grain sacks. Rankar ought to know what that would do. A fire would send up half the city--maybe the whole city, she hadn't calculated it out--in a massive explosion. She might survive. Probably no one else would.

"He'll send assassins next," Spike warned. She hadn't seen Angel since her nap. Had he abandoned her? Well...screw him. No, bad idea. To hell with him; that worked better.

"And horses eat grass." Her personal demon had managed to teach her a little something that'd help with assassins.

"Can't believe you took the Market with a cheerleading routine." Spike settled back to scan the rooftops. "Though I do suppose they've never seen one before."

Buffy snickered. "I'm just glad it occurred to me that it was a kind of dance." Abruptly an image of the Brass Dancer waving pom-poms intruded on her thoughts and the snicker turned into choking gales of laughter. "Oh god, I might've just started a new fad in the Demon City!"

Spike gave her an uncertain laugh. She'd have to explain. She closed her mouth and tried to catch her breath and

everything went askew, slowing down

a pair of blurs appeared atop the grain sack wall, and Buffy flung herself into a backwards cartwheel just as four slim blue throwing blades shrieked by her. One embedded itself in Spike's arm and dispersed into a freakish dust devil that tossed him around. The other three embedded themselves in the soil before vanishing.

Buffy seized the Scythe and swung it around in front of her to deflect any more blades. "Oi!" Spike yelled, but she was already vaulting her way up the wall, disturbing the sacks no more than her would-be killers. She couldn't see them clearly. With a fluid motion she cut open a pair of bags near the top, filling the air with dust. They were still blurs, but they were fairly obvious blurs now.

"You sure you want to do this? Because I know how to deal with the likes of you." One faded back, letting the other charge, and she tried to flip him off the wall. Only suddenly the first had tangled his feet with hers--she saw it coming, but couldn't sidestep in time--and they all went tumbling to the pavement stones. "Dharma," Buffy said calmly.

The purple girl glanced at the crates and breathed a tiny tongue of green fire. "Go ahead," Buffy stated flatly. "Fight me. Send more assassins if you have some reserves. I bet you'll love this package I've got for Rankar."

The pair of assassins faded into view. Okay, neither was a he; her bad. Their wispy white hair floated in the breezes that surrounded them. One had ice-blue skin, the other stark white. "I will not," said the one on her left. "In fact, I request an hour for my sister and I to leave town before you try that. Rankar isn't paying us enough to face this."

"I suggest you run," Buffy murmured. "Especially if there are any more of you out there." She couldn't afford to make a deal like that and keep it.

"Very well," said the blue one on her right. "Sister?"

They ran.

"Okay," Buffy said. "Don't actually set off the bomb while I'm gone. Anyone stupid shows up, get Garima." The Water-aspect akuma could block them.

She left the square faster than the assassins had.

*****

Buffy kept her feet pressed against the walls and her hands dug into the crevice as Rankar's remaining bodyguards walked by beneath her, two men and a huge bulk of a woman, skin obsidian, granite-grey, and the light tan of sandstone. All the same aspect. That was an oversight. Sure, Earth aspects clearly made good bodyguards, but it also left holes in their defenses. A Wood would have poisoned her to death by now.

So far she'd managed to separate off two from the group and pick them off. Take out these three and only regular guys would remain. Terrestrials might be everywhere, but they weren't dirt-common away from the Blessed Isle. Unfortunately they knew better than to split the party. Could she take three at once? Best not to risk it.

Alternatively, she could head for Rankar's panic room. She wasn't sure how to get in, though, and if these three doubled back she'd have to fight them all anyway. No...she would have to go ahead and attack. It was just a question of how.

Suddenly the woman with the shiny black skin stopped and looked _up._ Damn.

Buffy dropped from the ceiling. She could still run, try to string them out. _Not this time,_ her instincts told her. What were they thinking?

Obsidian made a gesture, and the floor buckled into stony spikes. Buffy didn't let that stop her; she darted left, running on the spike tips till she reached the wall.

That burst into spikes too. Ok, this could be a problem. Sooner or later some of those would start slicing into her feet. Too bad Slayers couldn't fly. Could--? No. Best not to try, not if she could do this any other way. She was human. She needed to remember that.

On the other hand... Buffy launched into a series of cartwheels across the ceiling. If she could run across it, why not?

Sandstone lifted his hands and rock flew at her from them. Sharp edges dug into her skin, hard surfaces struck at her, but did nothing but leave a few superficial bruises. She couldn't keep this up forever; she'd run out of energy, get winded, or both.

She slid the Scythe out of the sheath on her back and flung herself at Obsidian. She was the most dangerous, changing the battlefield like that.

Buffy slammed into what felt like a wall. She passed right through it, somehow, and crashed into Obsidian. _Her anima. It must be her anima_. She rolled onto her back, and now she could see it, like a cloud of black dust in the air. She'd missed it in the dim lighting of the palace.

Obsidian drove a dagger into Buffy's side. The Slayer struggled to her feet and dashed away down the hall. So much for instinct. She let the dagger stay. Better to take it out later when she was safe.

Granite brought his hammer down on the floor, and her feet left the ground as it trembled. "What was that? Eight point three, maybe? You'll have to do better than that." He stared at her.

Was that the problem? She wasn't [I]quipping [/I]enough? No, at least not all of it. She needed more offense. And a way into the panic room. And inexplicably her instincts were still telling her not to get away. No, not instinct. It was the demon in her. It must want her to fail.

"C'mon now," she snarked at Obsidian. "That the best you can do? Quit screwing with the floor and fight me!"

Obsidian smiled very slightly. "Not my job, Anathema. My job is keep you away from the Despot." She raised a hand, and a shelf of rock erupted from the wall, sliding downward to block Buffy's path down the hall. This was getting worse by the second.

Sandstone hurled another barrage of rock. It barely even grazed her; instead it struck the ceiling of a side passage and collapsed it. Could she get them to level the palace and kill Rankar themselves? Surely they'd know better.

The panic room was right next to her, but the rock walls were so thick she'd never be able to smash through them with these guys hassling her. Wait. Hang on. Something... The panic room could be easily opened from inside. No, Rankar would never open the door with the palace shaking like this. He could get out easily three or four different ways, but he would never leave till she was gone. Too bad she wasn't just trying to escape; except for the dungeons the palace was easy to leave.

Granite closed in on her, swinging his massive hammer. No way out now. They'd reduced the hallway to this little cul-de-sac and were blocking her only way out.

**_Through the wall, you fool!_** That was crazy. Did the radeken just want her dead? **_Do it! Go!_**

Granite lifted the maul, and in a flash she saw it. Buffy smirked. "None of you understand," she said softly. "You're not trapped in here with me. _I'm_ trapped in here with you."

She spun left and smashed through five feet of volcanic stone as if it were balsa wood.

Rankar saw her and dropped to his knees. Smart man. In a manner of speaking. "Take the gems," he rasped. "The gold. Take all you want. There will always be more. Just leave me my city."

The walls were lined with tapestries and immense chests and shelves of clothes. She only needed moments. She began lifting chests and wedging them into the hole.

In the end she didn't want to do it. He was greedy scum. He dealt in slaves, in drugs, in every vice Buffy could imagine. He was a tyrant, a literal despot.

He was human.

"Take it all," he pleaded. "The stones. The city. Take my children if you want. I can have more. Do what you want with them. _Just don't kill me!_ "

"You'd trade your kids for your own life? For your kingdom?"

"Anything! Please--"

Her face twisted into a snarl. "Wrong answer." She felt some image she couldn't quite see settle over her as she lifted the Scythe. Rankar screamed, and the stink of urine rose suddenly from him.

He didn't get the chance to scream again.

A chest crashed into her back. She felt no pain, but it smashed her to the floor. Up. Up! It toppled off her as if it weighed nothing, and she rose, grabbing the Despot's crown as she went.

"Go on then," she said. "I'm a killer. Rankar's toast. Take me out already."

"Oh, I don't even care about that," Granite muttered. "You got him. Nobody's paying us now. But you're Anathema. I'm not letting you have a kingdom, not even a shithole like this."

She was going to have to fight them. Somehow. And probably lose. Obsidian had too much power over the battlefield. But what else could she...

"Do you know why I killed him? Did you hear?"

"He was scum," Sandstone acknowledged. "He paid us nice, but he was a little shitstain of a man."

"But he paid you. And that was enough."

Granite snorted. "Going to offer to pay us off? I don't think so, Anathema. Your very existence is an offense to the Dragons."

The other two hadn't reacted. "Three times the pay," Buffy said, looking at Obsidian. "And I killed him to make him pay for his crimes. To make Gem a better place. I really don't like killing people." She turned to watch Sandstone. "Seriously. Any takers? Join my army?"

"Never," Granite growled, and raised the great maul over his head. Buffy lifted the Scythe to try and block...

Obsidian's dagger sank into his side. His eyes opened wide, and he tried to speak. Sandstone unleashed a barrage of cutting stone into his face. The dagger lifted, and fell again, into his heart this time.

The Dragon-Blood toppled, eyes already glazing over. For good measure, Obsidian slit his throat, then turned smoothly to kneel. "Four times the pay," she said calmly. "We're worth it."

Buffy lifted the crown to her head. "Deal." She'd have to watch them like a hawk. But if she had to, she could always kill them later. "Welcome to the new Gem, citizens."

Sandstone shrugged. "Whatever."

*****

"They did what?" She calmly turnyed, letting the water in her tub lap around her chest. Only her voice betrayed her agitation.

"Anathema have taken Gem, my Lady," he said, bowing deeply for her to behead him if she chose. "By all appearances, the ringleader of those who assaulted the Lap. The description is exact."

"And are the others with her?"

His voice quivered. "We don't believe so, my Lady. There is, however, a report that one of them has been seen in the West calling himself the Dread Pirate Robards. And a doubtful tale of a city risen from the sea bed."

"Right now, General, nothing is doubtful. Your report is appreciated. I will debrief you further when I am dressed." She began to rise from the tub.

"Of course, my Lady. I will go."

A laugh rose in her throat. "I have not dismissed you, General. We have...further business first. Don't worry. I need you well for after."

"Of course. I am honored. Do as you like with me, my Lady Mnemon."

The laugh bubbled over. "I shall."


	18. Complex Polygons

The sun rose high over the no-longer-sunken city of Luthe, gleaming off the domes, sparkling from the towers, casting a shimmering reflection across the surrounding sea. For fifteen thousand years, the city had been the utopia of the Scionborn; for nearly as long, it had been an internment camp for the Traitorspawn, now renamed and reborn as Luthea, the Children of Peace.

At no time had there been more Exalted there than could be counted on one hand. Leviathan and his chosen lieutenants, the Sage of the Depths and Swims-in-Shadow, had made homes of a sort there, though Leviathan himself had not set foot in the city in centuries. The two had sometimes taken apprentices of their own, yet never more than one apiece. No Gathering had ever been hosted there, at Leviathan's insistence, for his treatment of the Traitorspawn, while technically his business, would have drawn unwelcome eyes.

The Traitorspawn themselves had produced a total of seventeen Terrestrial Exalted over a period of fifteen centuries, of whom Gavrane Tomazri had been the last. In itself this was something of a puzzle, for they were among the purest Terrestrial blood remaining in Creation; save for a few perverts and rapists, no Scionborn had mingled their genetics with the disgusting creatures since the Usurpation. The Sage of the Depths had speculated that the conditions the Traitorspawn were kept in might be to blame; their spirits had been broken, the only glimmer of resistance being the preservation of lore against the arrival of a savior. For all that the blood of the Elemental Dragons was the prime factor in Terrestrial Exaltation, a certain strength of will, a certain heroism were also requirements, and those had been in short supply in the sunken city.

But Leviathan had been defeated, and now Luthe hosted the greatest Great Gathering to be held in centuries. Besides Lunar elders from all over the West and their apprentices, several elders had arrived from all the corners of Creation to see the upstart Dreamer-of-Reason and to discuss what was to be done about present crises across the world. Key agents had arrived as well--spies from the Blessed Isle, from Thorns, from Gem and Gethamane, from Lookshy. The Sage nervously considered that as many as half the Lunars in the world might be there, and while such a force was formidable it was also vulnerable.

Not that they were the only Exalted in the city. With Tomazri as their prophesied hero, and an ally in Dreamer-of-Reason--in himself, for that matter--the Traitorspawn had taken the fight to Leviathan and to all the Scionborn. Casualties had been high, but the chaos of war had proven a forging ground. The battlefield had seethed with elemental forces. If one counted the fatalities, the Sage believed as many as a hundred Dragon-Blooded might have Exalted in a matter of a few hours. Against such a force, Leviathan himself might not have stood even without the Sage and the Dreamer opposing him. Most of them were Water Aspect--no surprise--but every element was represented, even Fire. And though the majority were in their mid-teens, a few were as old as their mid-twenties--all but confirming the "heroism" hypothesis. The older ones must have been strong-blooded yet denied a chance to demonstrate their worth until now. In truth, the Sage feared that a majority of the Traitorspawn children might Exalt from now on. Strangest of all, confirmation that the Dragon's Blood truly permeated all Creation by now: Graek, son of a Shadow-Swimmer commander, had Exalted as a Wood Aspect, though he had been slain in battle minutes later. He might have been the descendant of some forgotten rapist, but just as likely his lineage had some distant connection to the Dragon-Blooded from before the Usurpation.

And of course there were two remaining: the Dread Pirate Roberts, a Solar of unknown origin, and the even stranger creature calling herself Thousand-Faceted Nelumbo, a type of Exalt unlike anything the Sage had encountered. At least Roberts--or Xander Harris, which seemed to be his birth name--was no stranger than Dreamer-of-Reason herself, who claimed him as an acquaintance from her mysterious world. Nelumbo, however, seemed not even to be properly human, and claimed to have an Exaltation crafted by the Great Maker, or at least by his priests and through his power. The Sage was tempted to see what would happen if he tried to claim her Heart's Blood, but he worried that her mastery of martial arts would be his undoing.

"I forbid it," he said.

"You? You forbid it?" said the creature before him, with a smirk. She seemed younger than Dreamer-of-Reason, but Raksi was centuries older than the Sage himself. "Why should I permit you to deny me? Why should you keep your student from her best teacher?"

"The Dreamer will not learn from you," the Sage told her. "She will no more tolerate you than she tolerated Leviathan."

"Is that a threat?" Raksi laughed uproariously at the notion.

Sage sighed. "No, Queen of Fangs. I have no doubt that you can defeat her. Leviathan, for all his power and strategic wisdom, was a brute by our standards. With preparation and aid, Dreamer-of-Reason out-thought him--and even so, she nearly still overestimated her ability to survive his assault. Against you, she would be as a child. But all the same, she will not sit at your feet and gnaw on the bones of infants at your command. She would see that as a great evil, and against you she will choose to stand even at the cost of her own life. You will have to kill her--or break her mind, which would render her a poor student indeed."

Raksi pouted; there was no other word for it. "She's that intractable?"

"She defied me to my face. She mouthed off at Leviathan. She will not kneel before you."

The Queen of Fangs grumbled under her breath. "Fine. Let us speak of other things. The Deathlords. The Silver Prince is moving here; the Mask of Winters' grasp has tightened on Thorns till none dare oppose him, and he will move soon as well. Others are doubtless acting, though more quietly, lest their rivals gain too much favor with the Neverborn."

"Undoubtedly." For all her petulant childishness, Raksi was a genius; military affairs were not her forte, but they were far from impenetrable to a mind like hers. "We may be able to make use of Thousand-Faceted Nelumbo. She claims that Autochthon needs souls to sustain his life, and has been raiding the Prince's armies for his hungry ghosts."

"Can she truly be an emissary of the Great Maker?" Raksi straightened her knee until it bent backwards, dislocating the cap to one side. "He vanished long before I was born."

"I do not care what she is," the Sage explained. "I care that she has the means to wreck the Prince's army, and possibly those of the other Deathlords."

"Valid," Raksi said after a moment. "How do we approach her?"

The Sage shrugged his skeletal shoulders. "She has one good friend here: the Dread Pirate Roberts. We must treat with a Solar--a young one, yes, but a Solar all the same."

Raksi growled and flexed her fingers back flush with the back of her hands. "Not I, then."

"No," said the Sage, hiding his relief. "Not you."

**Chapter 18--Complex Polygons**

Xander brandished the sword. "A...what did you call it?"

"A wavecleaver daiklaive," Peleps Kolohi said. "I've never seen one made from orichalcum, but it must be fifteen hundred years old or more. This was a First Age military base, after all."

"What's with the gemstones?" Xander pointed to a pair of shiny jewels set into the hilt. One was a smooth oval shape, transparent with the faintest hint of blue-green; it might have been magically-frozen water. The other was triangular, but rounded, green and carved with more facets than he could count.

"Hearthstones," she said, frowning. "Don't you know what hearthstones are? They carry some magic from the manse that created them. You'd have to be attuned, though. I don't know where these are from."

"Never run into any," he said, smiling weakly. "Do they let me breathe fire?"

"No," said the Jade Wave, "but this one lets you breathe water. It's a Stone of Aquatic Prowess. Attuned to this, you're as amphibious as I am, maybe more. The other is a Crystal of Legendary Leadership. If these are the stones that were set in this blade when Luthe sank, this might well have belonged to Amyana or Arkadi. The Crystal makes people listen to you. If I were you, I'd take this. I'd keep it for myself if it were moonsilver."

"Ahem," said Fred.

"Er. With Dreamer-of-Reason's permission, of course. But since it's orichalcum it's harder for me to attune to. Not really worth the effort. Most of these things are made from jade, for Dragon-Blooded." She poked at the transparent stone. "Honestly I don't really need this one anyway. For the Dread Pirate Roberts, I'd call it just about perfect."

"Fred?" he queried.

"Take it, Xander." She grinned at him. "I'll find one for me in here somewhere. I've got a city to run anyway. The Sage says I need to get things set up before I do, but that I probably oughta turn it over to my subjects when I get it ready. I worry about that, but he's got some good reasons."

"The point of the Thousand Streams River," Kolohi said quietly, "is to make a society that can do without the Exalted. Obviously you need to get it going the way you want it, but trying to run it yourself in the long run would be counterproductive." Fred's smile turned nervous, stretching out over her face but without increasing in any real degree of good feeling.

"Who were Arkadi and Amyana, anyway? I mean, wasn't Leviathan the admiral?" Xander was turning the sword over in his hands. "Where do they fit in?"

"Arkadi was Leviathan's Solar mate," Kolohi explained. "Lunars and Solars were made to pair off. Often it was sexual, but it could be just good friends, or siblings, or any kind of strong feeling. A few even become deadly enemies. Lust is pretty common, actually, but Arkadi and Leviathan were both strictly hetero according to the stories. So Arkadi got married to Amyana instead."

"Then I've got...and Fred's got...are we?" Xander fumbled, almost dropping the daiklaive.

"If you were, you'd know it by now," Jade Wave said. "You look like you're just friends to me. But yes, Fred has a Solar mate out there somewhere, and you've got a Lunar one. Odds aren't bad that yours is here, actually. You might want to keep an eye out."

Fred blushed. "So it'll be love at first sight? The Sage never got around to this part."

"Good chance," Kolohi said. "No guarantees, though. I've heard stories of 'just good friends' and even parent-and-child or twin-sibling mates. I mean, clearly you'd know already if it were that, just that it's possible."

"If deathknights and Infernals are corrupted Solars," Xander thought out loud, "doesn't that mean Buffy has a Lunar mate too?"

"I doubt it breaks that easily," Kolohi mused. "Yeah, your friend's got a Lunar mate. I feel sorry for whoever it is. I know you care about this Buffy, but she's dangerous, and she's only going to get more dangerous."

Fred shrugged. "She doesn't seem too bad to me."

"Maybe she's the Sage's mate," Kolohi said. "He doesn't seem too interested in sex at all as far as I can tell, but maybe he just misses whoever it was."

Xander chuckled. "He'd better hide, then. Don't get me wrong, Buffy's loyal to her boyfriends, but she and Riley seemed pretty busy, and Angel's curse had her all in a twist till they broke up. Willow told me Buffy and Faith had some weird vibes going on too. That is...I mean, not that kind of vibe...er, who knows?" Fred began giggling uncontrollably.

"The point is, if her mate's an elder then odds are they can handle her." Kolohi sounded a little put out by all the laughing. Xander tried to wipe the grin off his face.

"What if it's someone like Raksi?" Fred wondered. She'd dodged a bullet herself there after the Sage told her who Raksi really was.

Jade Wave shivered. "Best to not even think about it."

*****

Captain Redfang surveyed the wreckage of _Distant Obsidian Shores_ and groaned. His ship had lasted through the majority of the battle, only to be struck by friendly fire by the Luthea in the last half-hour. Roberts had given it his best, but finally he'd had to point out that the Captain's ship was outgunned and obsolete.

"Fred's agreed to provide you with a ship from Luthe's hangar bay," Roberts explained carefully. "I know you're attached, and all, but let's face it: if we get into another fight, with Lintha or the Skullstoners or who knows what, you're just going to get wrecked again. Why not take a ship that's more powerful than anything still on the water, outside of a Realm dreadnought?

Redfang slapped his hand against the prow, muttering to himself. It felt disloyal, abandoning his ship, but every ship died eventually. Many took their captains to the bottom with them. _Distant Obsidian Shores_ had spared him that. "You're certain the Lunar wants you in charge of her fleet?" It wasn't that there was anything wrong with Roberts taking command--just that, by what he knew, such an arrangement was rather backwards. Once, Roberts would have ruled the city, and perhaps Dreamer-of-Reason would have been his admiral.

"Pretty sure, captain. Fred's a straightforward kind of girl. She wouldn't ask if she didn't mean it." As long as no one talked about him being a god-king, Roberts exuded confidence mixed with casual friendliness, yet somehow if the subject of his appropriate status came up, he went red and started backtracking. Perhaps a little humility was to the good, yet he really needed to get over such a powerful embarrassment.

"What about Gavrane Tomazri?" The Luthea hadn't fought to be subjugated by a different Lunar, even one who claimed to care about them.

"Tomazri's been tapped for her advisory council," Roberts explained. "I think that, uh, ultimately she wants the city to be able to run itself without her. She's trying to get the system set up so that everyone has a say but the Luthea have veto power."

"Hrrm. Well, I can't fault her good intentions." Redfang had the suspicion that Luthe would hold together in the short run, or he wouldn't have stayed as long as he had. In the long run, though? There would be a civil war, and unless they played their hand very badly, the former Traitorspawn would end up as slavemasters over the beastpeople. "Honestly, though, Roberts? I'm here because I trust _you_. If she doesn't keep you in charge, I'd just as soon leave, free and clear. Do you really think she'd let such a powerful ship go?"

"If Luthe's not in the middle of a war right when you leave? Yup. Fred wouldn't offer what she doesn't mean."

Redfang thought that over. "Well, then, I have no reason to go. Let's see this new old ship." He'd have to get familiar with the thing. No sense being blindsided when Luthe was attacked. Because--and they had better face it--Luthe _would_ be attacked. It was just a matter of time.

*****

"Honestly, Roberts...you're a natural at this." Nelumbo wondered if he caught the irony in her words. On the one hand, of course he was a natural; this was Solar Hero Style, after all. It was the fighting style that emerged when untrained Solars fought barehanded. At the same time, though, there was something legitimately...him...about Xander fighting in a two-fisted brawl. The boy was honest and straightforward, though his humor kept him from tactlessness. He was not conniving, nor was he a mad genius, as some of the very last tales of Solars portrayed them. Nelumbo had a hard time believing he could lie effectively if it were appropriate to do so--though of course, he was a Solar and would find a way.

In any case, she had already managed to train him through the Style's Form. Xander balanced casually on the balls of his feet, fists up, stance just open enough to entice an enemy without letting a blow through. He shone with warm radiance, this world's sunlight shaded with just a hint of cloud. If she had time, she was considering teaching him some more exotic styles, though in all honesty she rather wished he would master this one. It suited him.

She brought her foot up, and Xander blocked it with ease. It wasn't her best move--few people could survive her best moves--but it had been a solid blow and he had countered it, catching her kick in his hand. She began a punch and abruptly realized that he was already shifting to the right, hand up to block her. Though even if he missed, she would doubtless miss as well.

"See," he said, "the secret is to let them think you're stupid or crazy." The roundhouse kick he began was horribly telegraphed. There was no way she could fail to evade--his foot flashed around, suddenly accelerating into a blur, and slammed her back into the wall. "And then when they're off their guard, you do something that actually is crazy."

"What was that?" That technique was no part of the Solar Hero Style she knew. She had seen the Essence flows, but could not imagine any way of duplicating them. Emulating, perhaps, with her implants, but not duplicating.

"I don't know. Just seemed right." He offered her a hand, and she took it. She had already found that he knew not to assume combat was over.

"Well, it was right. But it isn't in my databanks. I thought my knowledge of the style was complete." Yet another limitation to escape from, she grumbled inwardly. Perhaps mastery of the Flower would bring the ability to learn these hidden techniques.

Xander shrugged. "I don't know how often I'm going to do this stuff anyway. I just got myself a cool sword."

She rolled her eyes at him. "Xander, there will be times when you cannot carry that sword about. In any case, there are other martial arts with which you can use your sword. Try not to assume too much."

"I'll do my..." Xander trailed off. "Who's that?"

Nelumbo turned to look. A pair of Lunars were strolling through the hangar bay, arguing. "The man with the beard? I would not presume to know." 

"No, not...who's the girl?" The girl was pretty enough, Nelumbo supposed, but she couldn't fathom why she would draw the Pirate's attention in such a manner. She did have a pair of pointed cat ears and a tail, and like many of the Lunars aboard Luthe, she was rather revealingly-dressed.

"I cannot say I've met her," Nelumbo said irritably. "Don't let her disrupt your--" Xander turned on his heel and began to saunter away. "--training session." The girl seemed to hear his footfalls and glanced over her shoulder to stare at him before sauntering over to meet Xander.

What in the Great Maker's name was going on?

*****

"So," Xander ventured. "You here for the big get-together? Got friends?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "Good friends. That was someone I knew...a long time ago. A barbarian conqueror, now. In some ways, he's changed a lot. In others..." she sighed, "not a bit."

"A barbarian? What's a nice girl like you doing with a guy like him?"

The cat-girl smirked. "What makes you think I'm a nice girl? Name's Anja Silverclaws, and I'm a spy and assassin for the Silver Pact. Ma-Ha-Suchi's my teacher. You'd better learn fast not to judge Lunars by their cover, mister, because for all you know that could've been the girl and I could be Ma-Ha-Suchi."

"Anja?" Xander blinked. "I could swear I know you. And I could swear I don't know you the way I think I do. My name's Xander Harris, but around here I've been going by 'Dread Pirate Roberts'. It's a long story."

"Isn't everything?"

Xander let out a quick burst of laughter. "Excellent point. But no. I have the strange feeling that I'd know you anywhere."

"Of course you do," Anja said. She grinned, and yet something about her tone sounded...resigned.

"And you know I'm a Solar how exactly?" He tried to infuse that with every bit of cockiness he could manage, wondering all the while _why_ he wanted to. Sure, she was unbelievably cute, but he'd already been through this once with Nelumbo, and Anya was going to beat him about the head, Exaltation or no Exaltation, for doing that.

"Oh, it's easy. It's because you're completely, unreasonably attractive." Anja closed off her stance, but her arms were folded underneath her breasts, consciously or not. "I've never met you in my life, and you're goofy and only mildly handsome, so it's pretty obvious who you have to be." She put her left hand to her forehead. "Luna preserve me from inconvenient encounters with my Solar mate, but that's who you are."

"I'm wh--? Okay, I only just learned that there was any such thing as that." Okay, he could handle this. "You're pretty unreasonably attractive yourself, but it just so happens that I already _have_ an Anya in my life, and we are ridiculously head-over-heels in love, and I'm completely certain that the idea of sharing me with someone else will make her want me horrifically cursed. So I am unequivocally _not_ going to tell you you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen and would you mind joining me for something alcoholic and--wait, I wasn't going to say that." Smooth, Xander, real smooth.

"Listen, Xander, you should stick with your Anya. At least she has good taste in names." She made a frustrated face, the tiniest of frowns coupled with a bit of a pout. "If things go well, I'm going back to being a spy on the Mask of Winters in Thorns as soon as things ease up a bit. If they go badly, we're going to outright war with him. Either way, there's a solid chance I'm not going to live through the next month. And if you try to get involved with me, neither are you. I'm going to accept that I'm dying young, if I'm desperate enough I can get a sexual partner wherever the hell I want, and I am _not_ going to enter some kind of actual relationship with a guy who might conceivably care about me, and...gods, that sounds incredibly screwed up." Anja groaned under her breath. "I need a freaking drink."

This was his ch--stop that! "Come with me," Xander said, "and I'll buy you a freaking drink. We'll get horribly stinking drunk together so that if one of us should happen to make any moves on the other it'll go ridiculously badly and we will agree to never speak of it again, presuming we even remember what happened." He offered her his arm. "Besides, this whole, 'I might die tomorrow so I'm not gonna bother living today' bit? My home, if I ever get back to it, just happens to be the mouth of Hell, so I know just how overrated that is."

"The mouth of Hell, eh? And has it ever puked out monsters that took over your home and turned it into a living nightmare?" Anja was trying to say it lightly, but it was plain that she wanted to put him off. It was adorable.

"Tries a minimum of once a year, and I've helped stop them each and every time, and that was _before_ I was Exalted. So there. If anyone's gonna be able to help you beat this Mask of Winters guy, it's me and my friends." He glanced back at Nelumbo. "Hey! I promise I'll be back to spar with you tomorrow. I just have to put this whole 'solar-lunar mates' thing to rest, okay?"

Nelumbo didn't look at him. "Whatever," she murmured. "You don't actually have to show." Did she really think--?

"Nelumbo, I swear we're not going to do anything." If they did, why did it matter to her? It wasn't as if they had any business being together. He'd apologized, and she'd accepted. Right?

Anja sighed. "You promised me a freaking drink, and I want a freaking drink. Let's get on with it."

Nelumbo was sitting beside a pillar, curling up. Damn it, he didn't want to upset her! "Nelumbo, do you...also need a drink? Look, come with me. I swear I'm not looking to hook up with this girl, and if you're with us you can help me remember that. Come on. We're all friends here, okay?"

She glanced at him and seemed to come to a decision. One smooth motion uncoiled her off the floor. "I'm friends with you, at least. As you like. Let us go obtain a round of freaking drinks and keep each other out of trouble."

*****

Someone was purring in his ear. Actually purring, like a cat. Xander could feel warm, smooth crystals resting against his cheek. He opened his eyes.  
"Goddamnit."

*****

What had Xander been thinking?  
Fred sat in her throne, Xander and Anja--that was weird!--to one side, Nelumbo and Captain Redfang to the other, and Luthea arrayed before her. "Tomazri, I want Xander in direct charge of the military for the moment. You, on the other hand, I want to be my chief military advisor. Don't worry that you won't see action. Any time Xander is out of touch, the command is yours."

"With respect, Dreamer-of-Reason," Tomazri said, bowing, "the system you are setting up seems unnecessarily complicated."

Fred winced. "I know, Tomazri. Unfortunately I have a situation on my hands. The nature of Celestial Exalted means that they can be better than everyone else at what they do. But that doesn't give them the right to enslave other people the way that Leviathan did to you. I need Xander's competence, but I also want to be certain that you stay free. That means dividing up the lines of power. Do you understand?"

Tomazri nodded, shifting uncomfortably. "Just as you want to ensure that we do not enslave the Scionborn in revenge, and therefore have not granted us absolute rule of Luthe."

Fred tried to make a gracious bow of her head. "You have a majority on the council as long as you choose to keep it. When you believe things have stabilized, you have the right to choose to even out the numbers."

Tomazri frowned, but bowed low. "As you say, Queen Winifred."

God, this was a mess. "The rest of the new Dragon-Blooded report to Gavrane Tomazri for assignments. Probably most of you will have at least a temporary military commission, but we understand that not all of you wish to make the military your life. I'm going to be trying to establish trade relationships with other local powers, but for now we have to be ready for anyone who might try to attack us. We basically just materialized out of the ocean for all anyone knows." She raised a hand. "Any other concerns?" For once, no one spoke up. "All right then. Dismissed."

Fred waited for the Dragon-Blooded to file out of the room, then let herself sag down onto her elbows. "It's not easy being Queen."

"It could've gone worse," Xander said, chuckling. No one else got the pun. "At least you're you and not Cordelia."

Fred shared a brief moment of slightly uncomfortable laughter. Cordelia hadn't known what she was getting into, and that _was_ funny, but the memories of Pylea were still raw. "Training sessions with Nelumbo going okay?" A strange back-and-forth series of looks passed between Xander, Nelumbo, and Anja. Well, they were going to have to sort that out between themselves and Anya.

"Xander is performing acceptably," Nelumbo said after a few moments. "He's quite talented."

"What about you?" Xander asked. "Got any new tricks up your sleeves?"

Fred grinned. "You betcha." She closed her eyes and concentrated, feeling her skin...ripple. A white opalescent carapace, ribbed and jointed, melted out of her skin, coating her, replacing her clothes just as if she were shapeshifting. It was skintight, perfectly melded to her body, which itself was not as skinny as it had been a few weeks ago.

Xander gulped nervously. "Er...yay! Good for you, I mean!" Served him right. Well, she wasn't going to succumb to his charms. Anja clapped. Even Nelumbo gave her an approving half-smile.

"That looks very...protective," said a voice from the door. "It's form-fitting and attractive and if I were remotely interested in women I'd say it looked extremely sexy on you. Which is to say I'm not sure I like you wearing it around my Xander." Fred blinked. Who was that, and what did she have to do with Xander? "I know, I know, you've forgotten all about me. Don't worry. I'll explain."

Xander groaned and buried his face in his hands. "Hi, Anya. Please don't be angry."

"Why should I be angry? You haven't already done something with Fred, have you?" She glanced around the room. "Or with any of these other attractive women here?" Captain Redfang groaned under her breath and shook her head. "Don't worry, Captain. I know a man when I see one. Although I don't know whether Xander does. Speaking of which, Xander, I'm glad you remember me, but it's rather surprising."

Xander seemed to be trying to look anywhere but at Anya, which was understandable if they were really together. "I didn't at first. I don't know why, but I forgot you completely. And then suddenly I remembered you again. New trick up my sleeve."

"Well, it's a good one. I'm Exalted too now. I'm not really supposed to talk about it but I managed to wangle this mission to come investigate the city because I spotted you here in the Loom. Everyone here is supposed to forget afterwards, the real me anyway."

Nelumbo sighed. "You and I both, it seems. Come with me if you're not alone, and I'll arrange matters so you don't get in trouble. How does that sound?"

Anya grinned--genuinely, so far as Fred could tell. "Extraordinarily convenient. Don't get to thinking that you can fool me about things, though. If this is a trick, you're in for it." Then she took a deep breath. "They still don't really trust me out on my own. This is a sort of training mission, and I'm here with a keeper. By the way, Xander, I'm very sorry. They tell me that it's not really legal, but it's sort of binding anyway, in a mystical kind of sense." She gestured at the door, and a tall, square-jawed woman with close-cropped brown hair followed her in. "Xander...come meet my wife."

Anja wiped her forehead and elbowed Xander in the ribs. "Pick up your jaw and accept her apology. Then make your own."

*****

"...so anyway. I'm very sorry, Anya. I swear it was before I remembered who you were with Nelumbo. And with, um...Anja Silverclaws, she was...well, we're kind of married too." Anya continued scowling. She didn't seem at all convinced.

"He really shouldn't remember you _now_ ," Siaka said. Iron Siaka. Not Ebon Siaka, which was going to be nearly as confusing as Anya and Anja. "I still don't think you should've shucked your identity, _Loki_."

"Shush," Anya told her...wife. This was getting complicated fast.

"Loki?" Xander asked. "You're disguising yourself as the god of evil? The male god of evil?" Iron Siaka looked alarmed.

"He wasn't evil," Anya grumbled. "Stop paying attention to those comic books. He was a trickster. And Loki probably gave birth to more kids than he sired. Anyway, Siaka, you didn't want me disguising myself as a Lunar in the first place, but you see they're everywhere, right?"

"Yes," Siaka said reasonably. "They're everywhere. And sooner or later one of them will ask you to change shape. Especially if they think you like to be a man."

"You argue like a married couple," Anja put in. "And I'm Xander's Lunar mate, not his wife. I'm not really sure what I even think of him, yet, except that he's sexy."

"He is that," Anya agreed. "And mine."

"Can we please stick to the important part?" Siaka said irritably. "I'm pissing off the pattern spiders something awful right now."

"So drop the fake i.d., 'Gavrane Elisi'," Anya argued. "I swear to you it's not doing you any good until we leave this room. I told you that if Xander remembered he'd have already told Fred and any other good friends he's made."

Siaka shrugged her shoulders and...something happened. It was nearly imperceptible, but Xander stopped feeling as if he should call her something else. "And I told you that they'd still more than likely forget as soon as he stopped reminding them."

"If they do, where's the problem? And if they don't, what are you going to do about it? Kill them all?" Anya glared, and Siaka glared back, looking as if she were considering it.

"If that's what it takes to avoid blowing a thousand years of cover? Yes!" Siaka looked about to pull out a mace from her hip and start bashing. "I don't say I'll enjoy it, but it might have to be done."

"I told you already," Xander pointed out, "Nelumbo can flashy-thing them with her aura. Everyone forgets except probably me. And her, but she's going back where she came from soon."

"I'm not sure it works that way," Nelumbo started, but Siaka was busy asking, "Flashy-thing?" before she got two words in.

"Blank their memories," Anya explained. "It's from a movie, Men in Black. They're a rumor, recognizable only as deja vu and dismissed just as quickly. They don't exist; they were never even born."

"Anonymity is your name, silence your native tongue," Xander added. "You're no longer part of the system. You're above the system. Over it. Beyond it."

"We're 'them'," Anya finished. "We're 'they'. We are the Men in Black."

"Yet you insist on blowing our cover to Malfeas and back!" Siaka shouted. "If you know how this works, why are you screwing things up?"

"Because she figures you can flashy-thing us if Nelumbo can't," Xander said patiently. "You can, right? Erase our memories?"

Iron Siaka put her head down on the conference table.

"So," Anya said brightly, "now that we've established why she shouldn't kill you, tell me again why I shouldn't?"

*****

"Why are you actively trying to get yourself--and more than likely me--assassinated?" Iron Siaka was back in her "Gavrane Elisi" disguise, and Anya had resumed hers as "Loki". The halls they were strolling through had been largely deserted for centuries, it seemed, though from time to time Anya spotted Lunars investigating the city. She thought they were Lunars, anyway; probably there were no native weasels or birds here.

"Xander understands discretion," Anya tried to explain. "Fred likely does too. Everything supernatural is secret where we come from. Xander and Buffy and Willow and a few others kept the secret for a good five years. Sure, people found out parts of it here and there, but then there wasn't anything supernatural enforcing it. He and Fred will keep their mouths shut and let the Mask do its work."

"And An--the Lun--Silverclaws?" Siaka punched the wall. "What about her?"

"If the flashy-thing effect didn't make her forget, and the Mask doesn't make her forget, we'll work something else out. They can't be the first Exalts who've found things out before." Anya paused. "They can't, right?"

"No," Siaka confirmed, "but the usual solution is to kill them. If they were Dragon-Blooded it'd be different. We could co-opt Dragon-Blooded. Their lives are full of secret intrigues anyway." She hesitated a moment. "And don't ask. Not even the Gold Faction does that."

"Are you sure?" Anya held her tongue for a moment. They were using some basic stealth magics to discuss these things without being overheard, but it was still a good idea to watch out for passers-by. No one appeared. "Look, it's simple, really. Keep it out of your report. I promise I won't report you either."

She didn't really expect Siaka to say, "Ok, deal," but that was exactly what Siaka did. Maybe she was getting the hang of this heavenly politics thing. "If Silverclaws starts blabbing, we kill her. At once. Otherwise, we agree to not mention a thing. That acceptable?"

"Suits me."

"Okay then. But you owe me a favor, clear?" Right. Well, Anya knew all about favors.

"To be specified later, right? And excluding anything inappropriately sexual?"

Iron Siaka nodded. "Though if you were to be interested, like you said we are...technically..." She was smiling, so it was probably a joke.

"I'm sorry," Anya said. "You're a little lacking in the penis department. Though in all seriousness if you wanted to arrange a group session the odds are pretty good that at least one of Xander's friends would be happy to--"

"Never mind." Iron Siaka gritted her teeth and strode on.

*****

"So anyway," Anya said patiently, curling a bit of Xander's chest hair, "we've agreed not to kill you."

"I would certainly hope not," Xander murmured. "I know you know how to make that as painful as possible."

"As long as you keep your mouth shut. Heaven is full of this sort of back room dealing, apparently. It's a lot like several hell dimensions I've visited in that way." To Xander's regret, she pulled a blanket up over her breasts. It was a little cold, he supposed. "Also there are too many crises going on to focus a lot of effort on you. Or me, for that matter. There was some talk about Luthe screwing things up but apparently Mercury put her foot down, so no one's going to arrange to sink the city permanently or anything like that."

"Because this is what's supposed to happen?" Xander wondered idly.

"More or less," Anya agreed. "Interfering would tangle the Fate threads up too much. I still don't know when I'll get to come back and see you again. For one thing, they're still trying to work out what to do about Gem. I'm pretty sure that's where Buffy is."

"Gem? The mining city in the far South?" He was still a little foggy on his geography. Luthe's databanks were about a thousand years out of date.

"Just got conquered by an Anathema that we can't find in the Loom. By cheerleading, apparently."

"Definitely Buffy." Not only did the cheerleading match, it was a way to make things as bloodless as possible. They both knew Buffy would want that. Though how exactly she had carried it off he couldn't say.

"The trouble is, Gem isn't close to any permanent Yu-Shan portals. They're talking about opening the Calibration Gate there, but again--lots of different stuff going on. Nobody wants to have the Gate bouncing back and forth across Creation because everyone's summoning it. For one thing," Anya said with a smirk, "it screws up the economy if anything odd goes through. Sidereals are supposed to prevent that kind of thing, but it turns out they're not above making a little extra on the side. Remind me to tell you about something I've just set in motion myself."

"Wait. Anya, are you messing with the economy here?" She was going to start a depression or something making her first billion gold pieces.

"Xander, I'm a Sidereal. I _am_ the economy. The trouble is that heaven's a wreck, and it shouldn't stay that way. I hope Gunn and Tara and Wesley aren't all mucking things up while I'm gone."

"Ok, if you say so. But you were talking about Buffy." He was going to have to get up and get clean in a bit. It was good to have showers again.

"We need to get close to her. Actually, the higher-ups want her assassinated, but we can't have that. They don't know her like we do." She hesitated. "I'm not sure we're done here. I could go again."

"So could I, Ahn, but could you please--?"

"Fine, fine. I'm trying to arrange some kind of meeting with Buffy, but it can't be me. And you and Fred are tied down here. I'm not sure what we're going to do. I'm trying to work out some way to leave a message for her." Anya began to fiddle with her hair nervously. "I weave fate, and Buffy can see the future in her dreams. But I don't know how to tell if she got a message."

"Not a bad idea, though." He sat up. "Ahn, I need to get a shower. But if you want, we can shower together. How's that sound?"

"I'm up for it. As long as it's just the two of us." She popped out of bed at once, grinning.

"I've told you I'm sorry," Xander said, climbing out of bed more slowly. "I swear I didn't mean to cheat on you."

"That's what they all say," Anya said, sounding perfectly reasonable. "Say. Lunars are shapeshifters, right? We were talking about Loki earlier. Can this other Anja be--?"

"I don't know!" Xander said hastily. "I really didn't ask."

"Get her to try," Anya said. "And we'll call your indiscretions forgiven."

*****

"Nazri," Iron Siaka grumbled, "I know that you like her. But Anya is already out of control. I've had to arrange to alter several people's memories." A little white lie--and one that might not be false, at that. "Is there anything you can do?"

"The threat of auditing seemed to worry her a great deal," Nazri said. "Perhaps we should make it a reality. Or we could simply dispose of her."

"Chejop and Ayesha both are determined to keep her around," Siaka pointed out. "Also I would have to explain to the Maidens about the bond-breaking thing."

"They're not as attached to her as you seem to think," Nazri demurred. "Though you're right that both prefer to keep her if they can, as would I. I'll arrange for an audit. It'll force her to keep her nose clean."

"Thanks, Nazri. I know you want her on your side, too. One other thing. I could use a carrot as well as a stick. I'm, ah...I'm looking to replace one of my hearthstones. Happen to know of any Water-aspected manses I could attune to?"

Nazri's tone was baffled. "Water-aspected? There are a few. Can you be more specific?"

Iron Siaka sighed. "She's so easy on the eyes, Nazri, but she's very straight. I can handle it for a few hours at a time. Don't you think?"

There was a brief pause over the link before Nazri chuckled. "I suppose that would be a carrot, wouldn't it? Please be careful, Iron Siaka. You're a credit to the Bronze Faction. I'd regret seeing you in trouble over yet another woman. I'll see what I can find."

"Thank you, Nazri."

"You're welcome. Just...don't knock the new recruit up."


	19. Armed and Dangerous

Faith was starting to understand that she was meant to die here.

Most of her memories had returned, even the gun barrel jammed into her eyeball. She dreamed of that over and over. Sometimes she deflected the bullet off her eye socket, or knocked the gunman's hand away with bits of a moment to spare. That must be the brain damage talking; she couldn't have done that.

They should have released her by now, if they were ever going to. It wasn't as if her eye was going to grow back too. Instead she was stuck prowling the hospital's halls, sometimes chatting with the kid who would only call herself Shoat. Faith had found her chart, which said she was Cora Gleisan, but she refused to acknowledge the name.

Shoat spent most of her time in the long-term care ward talking to little old ladies on their deathbeds, or in the morgue, but she usually would speak to Faith too. She said Faith was an "instrument of death", which was creepy as all get-out, but she ate up Faith's tales of slayage. Faith tried to gloss over working for the Mayor, but before long the kid had weaseled it out of her. She didn't seem to mind, which was crazy of her.

For five days, that was life--hanging out with Shoat, jawing about old times, winning an arm-wrestling contest by a lot less than she expected, and wondering when whoever had tried to kill her would come back to finish the job.

On the sixth day Faith crawled out of bed feeling unusually cranky. She had a lot of stamina, but she'd never been able to match Buffy's ability to run on basically zero sleep. She'd never quite matched Buffy in anything, and for all that Giles had reassured her that she'd improve with time, it had eaten away at her.

The hospital was quiet. Faith checked the clock. She must be resuming the night life; either she was up early or she'd slept the day away.

Good odds what had woken her, though. Something felt off. Danger. It was about time. She slipped over to the door and inched it open.

"Hi," said Shoat.

"Jesus, kid!" Faith said after she was back in her skin. "You shouldn't be out of bed. It's after eleven."

"You are."

Faith decided not to argue. "Look, kid, someone wants to kill me. Stay up if you want, but go back to your room, okay?"

"If that's them, you're too late." Damn, the kid's tone was ice-cold! She was right, though. A M'Fashnik demon came around the corner, flanked by three humans with rifles. How'd they get those in here?

Well, if that was all...no, it wouldn't be all. Not if it was the same person who'd called the first hit. "Shoat, just run!" The gunmen opened fire. Faith grabbed up a stack of trays, holding them at an angle as they shook and sprayed bits of plastic.

Shoat didn't run, and she didn't hide, either. She scooped up a pen from the nurse's desk--- _no, kid, what the hell?_ \--and flung it at one of the gunmen.

It sank into his left eye, and he dropped.

The remaining gunmen turned to fire at Shoat. Faith flung the trays at one, and he went down. The other put a bullet in Shoat's chest.

She didn't fall. She made a face--it clearly hurt--but Shoat didn't fall. Must not have hit anything immediately vital.

Shoat picked up the tray table and slammed the gunman in the face with it, knocking him over. She should have been on the floor after that, crying in pain, even with the adrenaline.

There was really only one thing she could be, Faith concluded. Faith had died, just for a few moments, and...

Shoat bent down and sank her teeth into the fallen man's neck.

"Hey! Hey, what the hell, kid?" Faith seized her by the shoulder and tried to pull her away. Damn, the kid was strong! Faith found knotted muscles and taut tendons. It took a serious effort to yank her up off the man.

Shoat had his gun, and the M'Fashnik was nowhere in sight.

The girl wasn't a vampire. Faith had felt her pulse, could hear her quick but steady breathing. She had also seen fangs. What the hell was this kid?

"No guns," Faith warned. That had been Buffy's rule, not hers, but Buffy was the good Slayer, and Faith the bad one, and this kid definitely needed a good example to follow.

"You're nuts," Shoat said. "They're trying to kill us." The gun wasn't that much shorter than she was!

The M'Fashnik demon came back around the corner, this time with two more of his own kind and two Fyarls. Shit, this was no good. Shoat might be a Slayer--she was definitely a _something_ \--but she was totally untrained.

Shoat lifted the rifle, her eyes colder than any ice as she stood among the fallen bodies. It could never work. The demons were built to take punishment, the Fyarl could only be killed by silver, and at least two of the humans weren't even dead!

Shoat lifted the barrel, pressed it against a M'Fashnik forehead, and, in utter silence, a twisted grin plastered on her face, began to squeeze the trigger. The demons broke and ran.

"Shit," Faith breathed. "I've got to try that."

Shoat sank to her knees and drank again. This time, Faith was too unnerved to stop her. She finished off the fallen men, though Faith was sure the one she'd hit had no more than a concussion.

"Those things will be back for you, won't they?"

"Well, yeah, they will. But kid, I can take care of myself." Maybe she could. Even if she couldn't, she didn't want Shoat--Cora!--doing whatever she was doing to herself over it.

"Is that how you ended up here, shot in the head?" Shoat closed her eyes. A shudder ran through her body. "I hear them. Their voices...they whisper to me. They tell me what I can do. Like this." Shoat quivered like an arrow hitting its target, and a gash sprang into being on her throat, as if unseen claws were flaying her.

Faith grabbed her by the shoulders. "Stop it, Cora! What the hell? What _did_ you do?"

The girl looked through her. "You can't call me that. It's not my name anymore. But I was calling for help."

"Help? From where? That's no way to get help from anything good, kiddo."

Shoat met her eyes this time. "From the morgue."

What in the hell? Surely she didn't mean what that sounded like. Thump. Scrape. Okay. Maybe she did. Wait. "Kid, the morgue's three floors down."

"Close enough," Shoat said. "Besides, trauma care and the ICU are right beneath us. We do need to try and get down to them. They'll try to reach me but if they don't find stairs right away they'll try to smash through their ceiling."

Faith blinked. "Ok then, we better get going." Did she mean that she'd raised every dead body between them and the morgue as a zombie? That was gonna suck. It was gonna suck even if the zombies were on their side. "Out the window."

"But we need to get down to the next floor."  
"Trust me, kiddo. We'll get there." She grabbed Shoat up by the waist and hauled her into the nearest room. Not hers--this one was empty. The windows weren't made to open. Faith pulled back one hand and shattered it. She leapt, pivoting on one of the metal frames, and swung herself and Shoat down onto the windowsill below. "Next floor, getting off."

Shoat's eyes widened just a bit. Then she shrugged and slammed a hand into the window the wrong way, all straight-armed with her fingers out. The window shattered anyway. Well, if she wasn't a Slayer she was a demon. Not all demons were bad, just most. Shoat stepped inside, careless of broken glass or the reaching hands of the man with the IV needle sticking out of his arm.

The man took her arm and pulled her carefully inside. "To the morgue," Shoat repeated. "Follow me."

A woman with burns covering half her body took faith by the hand. Faith twitched and nearly ripped the creature's head off, but the zombie just tugged her gently forward. The things really did seem to be under Shoat's full control. Faith kept an eye on their mouths anyway.

The halls seemed to have been cleared out, either by the patients' own choice or because orderlies had emptied them. Escorted by the pair of zombies, they made it as far as the stairwell before encountering another group of assassins. The Fyarl leading them pointed wordlessly forward and, to Faith's surprise, raised a shotgun. Must be a genius by Fyarl standards. Two M'Fashniks surged forward; two humans dropped back and to one side, aiming their guns.

The zombies soaked up bullets as the assassins fired. Faith leapt, grabbing the edge of the flight above them, and lashed out with her feet, crushing two M'Fashnik faces. They staggered backward, blundering into the Fyarl as he tried to target her.

Shoat opened fire in return, dropping sideways. How was she reloading? She hadn't had any cartridges on her, and she didn't even look like she was trying to get ammo into her gun. She just kept firing, and the rifle kept shooting.

Suddenly there was a shotgun barrel in Faith's mouth. With a harsh coughing laugh, the Fyarl pulled the trigger.

The gun exploded in his face, staggering him. Faith landed hard on the stairs, only just realizing that the barrel was crushed, twisted upward between her hands. Damn. She had really done that. Recovering, she flipped up onto her feet and began raining punches into his smoldering face. Maybe she couldn't kill him, but she could rough him up till he quit.

The zombie pair were tearing the human assassins apart, but the M'Fashniks had recovered. One of them had a shotgun of her own. She fired, and the shell thundered into the wall as Shoat dropped, deliberately tumbling down the stairs. The M'Fashnik reloaded, covered by her partner and the snarling Fyarl demon. The latter sneezed a gout of horrifying slime onto Faith's face. The stuff was supposed to be paralyzing--or maybe it just hardened; her Watcher had never been clear--but Faith snarled and kept the blows coming. She wasn't paralyzed yet. Her face did feel a little numb.

The thunder of running feet sounded, and a mass of zombies burst into the stairwell from below. "Now we're talking," Shoat enthused, as if she were seeing her favorite ponies join a race.

Even the Fyarl toppled as the walking dead pulled him down. "We're gonna get out of here," Faith concluded, feeling a surge of confidence. "And then we're going to Sunnydale."

"Sunnydale?" Shoat responded like someone who'd heard of the town. "Why--?"

"That," Faith told her, "is where we'll find Buffy. Sure, she hates me, and with reason, but she won't stand for more demons walking into her territory. And when we find her, we get her to help us find who tried to kill me, 'cause there's only one reason to do that. Somebody's making more Slayers, and it ain't the good guys."

Chapter 19--Armed and Dangerous

Another three parties of demons and human assassins tried to block their way out of the hospital, the last in the parking garage. None of them had any more success, though they whittled down Shoat's supply of zombies. Shoat had to pummel the last Fyarl into unconsciousness personally.

"Got it, kid," Faith said as she touched the motorcycle's wires together. The bike roared to life. "Climb on and let's burn some rubber. This's a rich person's cycle. Insurance'll get 'em another." Why did the girl look reluctant? She'd killed a dozen people in there. Sure, they'd been trying to kill her first. But why make such a fuss about stealing now?

Was it just that she didn't want to meet Buffy? Faith could relate. "We need the help, kid. I won't let her hurt you."

"She can't," Shoat said. "How many times did I get shot back there?"

"Buffy doesn't use guns," Faith explained. "Generally doesn't need them. I'm glad you're five by five, but if she wanted you dead she'd find a way. Trust me. I've been there."

"You're not dead," the girl said, as she climbed onto the cycle in front of Faith. She was small, thin. How was she so strong?

"Of course not," Faith explained patiently. "Buffy never wanted to kill me. Just make me suffer. And I did."

*****

Faith's first thought was more assassins. The leather-skinned creeps on the choppers, though, weren't exactly professionals. They bragged about how tough they were and about their "anatomical incompatibilities" with human women.

"Funny," Faith said, "I hadn't figured it was something to boast about, not being able to satisfy a woman, and I'm not what most people would call anatomically compatible myself. Not that that's ever stopped me. You know, they have therapists for that these days." Her fist cracked the thing's jaw in half. "Self-help courses." Her knee found its groin. "No worries now. I got a copy of 'Sex Toys for Dummies' if your girl doesn't like the new you."

"Faith!" Shoat alerted her to said girl, who didn't look any less tough. A little smaller, sure. Faith spun and drove a broken handlebar through her guts.

"Whoops. That's gotta sting."

Shoat followed her example; thankfully, they'd discarded the rifle somewhere on the highway after Faith wiped it down to get rid of any prints. She used sharp little elbows and bits of improvised weapon and, unfortunately, even her teeth. Buffy wasn't going to like that.

Speaking of which: "That'll put marzipan in your pie-plate, bingo!" Buffy slammed an entire bike down on the biggest of the demons, smashing it into metal scrap. The motorcycle, not the demon, though the big guy had plenty of piercings.

"Buffy? I think prison took out my vocabulary. What'd you say again?"

The older Slayer just stared at her. "Faith. The evil Slayer. I kill evil things. Unless you'd like to join me for a three-way?"

Faith's eyes nearly popped out of her head. "Who's the thir--? I mean, what the hell is wrong with you, B?"

"What's a three-way?" Shoat piped up, holding a detached demon head in both hands.

"Oh! A three-way is when three people engage in--"

"You'll find out when you're older, kiddo." Faith cut Buffy off as neatly as she could. "B, kid's way underage to be hearing about this stuff. Let her have some innocence. What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing's the matter," Buffy said brightly. "All systems are go. Um. I mean, I'm in perfect slaying shape."

Shoat dropped the demon head and stepped forward, sniffing. "She doesn't smell right. I smell oil."

Buffy frowned at her. "That's from the biker demons' bikes. Who are you? You're not in my memory."

"I'm the Shoat of the Mire. Are you sure you're Buffy?" She poked experimentally at B until Buffy got uncomfortable and pushed her away.

"Pretty sure," Buffy enthused. "But if you're not, I guess we can go ask my boyfriend Warren. Sunnydale belongs to him now. He's a supervillain! And he knows lots of cool stuff!"

"I thought you said Buffy was the good Slayer," Shoat said, scratching at a bleeding cut on her arm.

"I am!" Buffy insisted.

"So why are you a supervillain's girlfriend?" Shoat moved in closer to examine Buffy again, and again Buffy pushed her away. "You're not like...reverse-Catwoman or something?"

"That's it," Buffy said with instant conviction. "That's what I'm like."

Shoat glanced at Faith. Faith frowned back. Something wasn't right here. Maybe Buffy was sick. Then again, Buffy had fallen for at least one vampire. "How come you haven't asked about Shoat's weird name?" Faith wondered.

"I've...um, I've got a lot of things on my mind," Buffy mumbled. Yeah, something was off.

"She's not alive," Shoat said after a moment of hesitation. "She's not dead either," she expanded before Faith could ask the obvious question--not that this Buffy seemed like what Faith expected of a vampire Sl...vamp-Slay...Slaypire? "I don't think she was ever alive. She's a machine."

"A robot? Someone built a robot Buffy?" If this Warren really was a supervillain, and he knew Buffy was the Slayer...and at least nine out of ten students, maybe all of them, had been armed to fight the Mayor, so he almost certainly did...

"I'm not a robot," Buffy said, laughing a very un-Buffylike laugh. "That's crazy talk. I'm just me."

Shoat reached out and clamped her hand down on the thing's arm. Her fingers dug into the surface, exposing wires and tiny pistons. "Ouch!" The robot tried to wriggle free but could not.

"Where's the real Buffy?" Faith demanded. "Somebody's trying to kill me, probably to make new Slayers."

"I don't know!' the robot wailed. "She vanished at the end of last spring. Two weeks later her friends opened some kind of portal and went after her. I don't have any data on any of them coming back."

"And you've been fighting the vampires and demons ever since?" Faith considered her. "Maybe you're better than nothing."

"It's in my programming," the robot said. "But I have to service Warren or he'll stop letting me recharge my batteries."

Shoat looked puzzled, but Faith felt only disgust. The average nerd was okay--usually boring, but not an asshole, and some really were sweet. But some nerdy guys, whether they were sociopaths to start with or just lonely and desperate at first, developed freaky, rapey kinks about mind control, sexbots, and things like that. If Warren was one of them, and was really smart enough to make the things he wanted instead of just fantasizing--or if the hellmouth helped him do it--then he really was a supervillain, of the worst possible kind. And apparently he was in control of Sunnydale, or thought he was at least. Unfortunately, Sunnydale was small potatoes if someone was making Slayers.

Two birds with one stone. Having a fake Slayer was probably important to keeping whatever control he thought he had. "How's he charge you up? Wall current?"

"He's got to store it up in a charger...thing. Or there'd be a blackout every time he plugged me in." Shit. Energy hog. Not her fault.

"Okay. Next step, we st--" Maybe not the best way to put it. "We take it from him so you can take care of yourself."

"You can't fight the Trio," the Buffy robot said sadly. "They're too powerful." Might be true, on the Hellmouth. Probably not, but might be.

"We don't have to," Faith said after a moment. "We just have to get it and get away. Easy as pie." They could take the fight to Warren and his...Trio afterwards.

"Why are we helping it?" Shoat asked.

"If we can't find Buffy, we're going to have to fight whoever's making Slayers ourselves. And depending on how many they've made already, they might have an army. Depends on who they have to kill and how many they've done by now. If it's me, they've just got one. But if they can kill any Slayer, bring her back, and double their pleasure...maybe dozens. Or hundreds."

"Then you need an army to fight them," Shoat realized.

"Yeah." Faith looked to the Buffy...bot. "You want to fight the forces of darkness, B-bot? You're with me."

*****

Warren, apparently, was an idiot. He had all kinds of gizmos and frammistats in his basement, but it wasn't _his_ basement. He was still living in his parents' house. Maybe he figured it was cover. Faith and Shoat spied on the house till he was out, Faith claimed to be an irate girlfriend, and the dude's relatively on-the-ball parents let her in. They should've gone to the police by now, but while Warren's parents didn't seem like the drinking-and-beating type a lot of okay-otherwise parents couldn't believe their kids could do any wrong. And anyway, the Sunnydale PD sucked.

The charger was heavy, but that was no obstacle. Faith jacked it, talked her way past the 'rents with a tale about computers, and was out at the motorcycles in a few minutes. "You know how to ride a hog?" she asked B-bot.

"I'm a fast learner," the robot answered. "Where's a hog?"

"Motorcycle," Shoat clarified. They'd taken an extra from the biker demons.

The device had a full charge. Faith wished she knew how to rig it up to charge from the motorcycle, but she'd find some place to plug it in. Meanwhile it'd keep the bot going on what it had. She strapped it to the back. "Time to learn, then," she told B-bot. "Climb on."

It wasn't much of a start for an army. But it was a start.

"Where are we going?" the robot asked.

"I don't know yet. Back to L.A., soon. Know anybody else around here who might help us?" Buffy's Scooby gang had been the big deal here, but they hadn't been the only ones who had pull. The Trio weren't likely to help, but there had been a magic store here, one with real stuff, so there had to be witches. They could use witches. Also..."Where's Oz?"

"He left," B-bot said. "He wanted to not be a werewolf any more. I don't know where he went. Won't Warren come with us?"

"Not a good idea." No matter how smart he was, Faith doubted she could teach him the lesson he needed to learn. "Anyone else?"

"Amy Madison is pretty powerful," B-bot mused. "But she's a rat right now."

"There's got to be a way to fix that," Shoat said bluntly. "Can we find her?"

"Willow's mom keeps her," B-bot said. "I hope she's okay. Willow's mom doesn't remember stuff much."

It was a common ailment with Sunnydale parents. Faith wondered if the Hellmouth was clogging their minds, or if they were just crappy people. Probably a bit of both.

*****

Amy seemed a little undernourished, and Sheila Rosenberg repeatedly called Faith "Fate Lalaine", but she was happy enough to palm off her daughter's pet rat on them. Faith hoped Amy wasn't going to change back into an old hag; she'd had a rat once and they aged fast. First things first, she had to figure out how to change Amy back at all, and even Willow hadn't been able to do that.

"How does someone turn into a rat?" Shoat asked. "I can raise zombies, but I can't do anything like that."

"Doesn't seem like one should be harder than the other," Faith said. "But I can't do either one. I really don't know."

"We need a witch," B-bot said. "Only, we have a witch."

Faith just groaned, but Shoat said seriously, "There's something to that. If she were able to cast, she might know how to break the spell herself. Otherwise, why'd she cast it on herself at all?"

"Huh." Faith hadn't thought of that. "Only, can she not cast because she can't talk, or because she's not smart enough, or just because she's not human?"

"Some demons can cast spells," said B-bot. "I don't know if a rat can."

"Know any more witches in the neighborhood?" Faith didn't, but she hadn't been around that long.

"Only Jonathan, but you said you didn't want the Trio." Faith shook her head at that. "And Rack," B-bot added. "If you don't want the Trio, you don't want Rack either. He's mean. Jonathan only went once."

"We'll keep them as reserve options," Faith decided. "If all else fails, we go to Rack." He sounded more likely to be competent than anyone working with Warren, and anyway the Trio would want B-bot back. "Let's head back to L. A.," Faith said finally. "Unless you know anyone else to pick up here." B-bot shook her head. "Okay. Maybe we can find more witches there."

"Worth a shot," Shoat agreed.

Their cycles kicked up dust as Sunnydale receded in their wake. "Whee!" B-bot squealed. She stayed on her cycle, though. Faith groaned and shook her head. Better than nothing.

*****

"Look at that," Shoat said, pointing to a billboard. "That's new."

The huge sign bore a familiar image, and read, "Lilah Morgan for Governor." Faith grimaced. "That bitch is the last person California needs in office."

"Could she be the one trying to kill you?" Shoat wondered.

"It's possible," Faith said, thinking. "I screwed up, and screwing up with Wolfram and Hart might as well be screwing over the Mob. If she doesn't have another use for me, she probably does want me dead."

"Do you know anyone here who can help us?" B-bot asked. "You went to Sunnydale because you wanted the real me, but maybe someone here can do something too."

Faith thought a moment. "Kate Lockley. I hate to go back to the police, but she knows what's up. It's not like jail can hold me; she knows I turned myself in and she knows I could break myself out. And if she's kept tabs, she knows why I was in the hospital."

"I'll talk to the police," Shoat said, "and figure out where to find her. Then you can meet with her in private, if she'll see you."

"Sounds like a plan," Faith admitted.

*****

"No luck," Shoat said an hour later. "She was kicked off the force a few months ago. No one knows where she went."

"Damn it!" Faith kicked the nearest wall. "I came back here for nothing!"

"Hang on," Shoat said, grabbing her by the arm. "There's more people here than just one ex-cop. Someone else can help us, surely."

"Who? I was gonna get Angel and his crew after I came back with Buffy, but they left with the Scoobies."

B-bot looked up from playing with Amy. "Vampires."

"What? B-bot, I don't work with any vampire but Angel." She carefully didn't look at Shoat. Faith still hadn't told B-bot anything about Shoat's...stranger powers.

"No," the robot said. "There are vampires coming this way."

"Oh. Well, if that's all, no biggie." The three of them could handle a good-sized group of vampires, judging from what she'd seen of Shoat and B-bot so far. "Where?"

Faith reached out with her own Slayer-sense--the one thing she knew of she could do better than Buffy. Sure enough, she could feel multiple demonic presences approaching, and vampires were what they felt like. At least a dozen were coming from the north, under cover of the lengthening shadows from the buildings. And one more was coming up behind them. An ambush? That made no sense, unless she was some kind of assassin, maybe using a bunch of clueless fledgelings as cover. "Got an extra one slipping up behind us. Watch for her." She pulled a stake from each of her side pockets, gave them to Shoat, and took out another two for herself. B-bot produced stakes of her own--Faith couldn't see from where, and wondered if she might have some kind of compartment to keep them in. Too bad Amy couldn't help out.

Then the vamps were on them. Faith danced and weaved, dodging here and there. Shoat took a more direct approach; she didn't seem nearly so badly hurt when blows connected. As for the bot...well, she wasn't either of them's equal, but any vamp who thought they could bite her was in for a surprise. Three of the vampires were dust before the first rush was over. Faith slammed one against the brick facing so hard his skull shattered to bits, destroying him instantly.

Shoat flicked one of her stakes out, dusting a vampire in mid-air as it leapt for Faith. B-bot duplicated Faith's feat with a head-butt, of all things. Well, she was made of metal, after all. Faith leapt over another vampire as it charged her, pivoting off an awning and coming down atop it before driving a stake into its chest as it lay prone.

Really, even this number of vampires was little more than a nuisance for the three of them. Trouble, but not real trouble unless they were already exhausted. In moments, the undead were gone.

"Shit!" Shoat swung left and hurled a stake _backwards_ and to her left. The lone vampire'd made its appearance. The stake sank deep into its chest, vanishing, and...nothing happened. Except that the vampire sank moaning to her knees.

"I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm...huh?" She held up her hands in front of her face. "What the hell?" The baffled vamp patted her chest, searching for the stake, and seemed to find nothing.

"What'd you do?" Faith asked Shoat.

"I don't know. Made it vanish into her. Somehow." Shoat stepped up to the undead girl. "Who are you and what're you doing sneaking up on us?"

"I was totally going to help you!" Memory came back. Faith knew this girl.

"Jesus, Harmony! Since when are you a vamp?" She'd seen plenty of nice people come back as monsters, but a vapid socialite tended to stay a vapid socialite. Though one or two had formed dangerous cults around themselves.

"Faith? Since when did you get back to being a good guy? I died fighting the Mayor." She kept pawing around, searching for the stake.

"You won't find that," Shoat tried to explain.

"Well, it has to be somewhere!"

"Harmony," Faith insisted. "Why were you sneaking up on us?"

"I'm trying to be one of the good guys," the vampire bubbled. "Angel can be a good guy. Why not me? Besides, nobody likes you when you're evil, except other evil people, and evil people mostly just call me annoying and tell me I'm a stupid loser."

B-bot raised a stake, and Faith caught her hand. "You know what? We can't afford to turn anyone down right now. Harm, you betray us, you die, right there."

Shoat nodded. "That stake can come back any time. If it does, you dust."

Faith hadn't meant that--she'd intended to stake the vamp again herself. But it worked. "You got that? Do what we say or you're dust in the wind. Help us and maybe you can prove you're right. Hell, maybe we can figure out how to give your soul back."

"I don't know if I want--" Harmony saw B-bot glaring at her. "Okies. I can go with that."

"You live here in Los Angeles," Faith said. "We're looking for an ex-cop named Kate Lockley. Got any leads?"

"Do I ever! She hunts vampires in the neighborhood around her shop. She sells, like, magic antiques and stuff. I got a few unicorn knickknacks from her...um, well, sorta secondhand." Harmony twitched nervously. Probably she'd stolen them from victims.

"No human blood," Faith said sternly, "unless you get it bagged." Angel had been doing that when they'd met, though she'd heard something about him going all-animal. Shoat gave Faith a curious look. Faith just shook her head. They'd talk about that business later; meanwhile Harmony wasn't likely to restrict herself to attackers. "She has a magic shop?" Talk about your change in professions. But it sounded like a cover. "Take us there."

*****

"You're a dead woman," Kate sputtered, staring at Faith's eyepatch. "They blew your brains out."

"They did," Faith said. "I got better. Who is 'they'?"

"You don't...'they' is Wolfram and Hart," Kate said, still stammering a little, eyes still fixed on the place where Faith's eye had been. "What are you? They bring you back as a vampire? You a demon wearing her body? A zombie?"

"None of the above," Faith said. "Guys, come on in. I don't think she's taking me back to jail. At least not yet. Kate, I'll go back when we get this business fixed, but you know why I can't let this alone."

"Lilah Morgan," Kate said under her breath as B-bot, Harmony, and Shoat filed into the store. "She's not just a lawyer any more, and I don't mean because she's going into politics. I don't know what she is. A witch, possibly."

"Can she fix Amy?" B-bot asked, smiling..

"Shush," Faith told her. "Lilah won't help with that." To Kate, she added, "Amy's a rat. We need to change her back."

"Maybe I can do something about that," Kate said, "but not right away. Lilah's developed some sort of mental powers. Nothing as simple as telepathy, from what I hear, but maybe she can do that too. I'm not sure about all of what she can do, really. Just...she's a hundred times as dangerous as she was. Possibly more. And she's taken over Wolfram and Hart, as an appetizer it looks like. I've been trying to protect this neighborhood from demons, but if Lilah becomes governor--or more; she won't stop there--that pretty much screws us all plus loan shark interest rates."

"Exactly," Faith said. "And if she's the one behind trying to kill me--twice--then she's trying to make her own private army of Slayers."

"Shit. Shit! This is bad." Kate came around the counter. "I'll go through the manifests, but I'm going to need some time to find things I might need to change Amy back to human. I presume she was human, right?" Faith nodded. "A witch, then. We need all the power we can get. I know people. I'll get...why didn't you go to Angel? Or even Buffy?"

"Out of town," Faith said. "Way out of town."

"Out of this dimensional plane," B-bot expounded. "Andrew knows all about that stuff."

"Well, I know a few more people besides those. It'll be a start."

*****

"It's a start," Lilah said. "Faith's building up an army."

_**How do you know? I didn't see anything out of the ordinary in those reports.**_

"Didn't recognize the name Kate Lockley?" Lilah watched Darla's image in the mirror. It helped remind her that she wasn't just talking to herself.

_**Of course I did. You had me use her to get to Angel. I couldn't forget that.**_

"Well, she's on the move. She's been strictly small-time since leaving the force. Now she's got people coming and going at all hours of the day." Lilah frowned. "Little heavy on the estrogen. Nothing wrong with that exactly, but it means she's overlooking half the population for whatever reason."

_**I don't understand why this is good news.**_

"Look, Mara wants us to free the Exaltations. We can do that without too much trouble, but odds are they're going to spread out around the globe. They look for _heroes_."

_**So?**_

"So, even if they start looking here, like that kid suggests will happen, a lot of them are likely to head out long-distance and Exalt people on the other side of the world. I can't afford to expend resources hunting down people in Kazakhstan. And the only way I can think of to prevent that...."

_**...is to fill the immediate area with as many suitable candidates as possible.**_ Darla's image in the mirror grinned approvingly. _**But won't they be against you?**_

"Not all, with any luck. These girls have enemies who won't take kindly to them opposing me. And not permanently. I have to figure out what to offer them, or warn them about, that's all. Everyone has a price, even if that's 'getting to save the world'."

_**Think they can do it?** _

"They'd better. How else am I going to turn a profit?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, folks. Not to alarm anyone, and certainly not to bribe. But anyone who's enjoying my work needs to know I just lost my job. We're likely going to struggle for a while.


	20. The Thermodynamics of Heaven

"So that's what passes for astrology in your world?" Ayesha sounded appalled.

Anya shrugged. "Most people don't really believe in it any more. It used to be a good bit more complex, but I didn't pay much attention back then. When I was young, we cast runes instead."

Ayesha frowned and thought that over for a while. "Other forms of divination can work, but I never understood why anyone would use them when the Loom is literally visible in the sky. In abstract form, at least."

"Some people don't seem to need it," Anya pointed out. "Buffy can see the future in her dreams. Cordelia has visions, not that she can control them. They're supposed to come from the Powers That Be, but I've always wondered which ones. She's had at least one since we got here."

"Well, yes," Ayesha admitted, "but they didn't set out to learn the future that way, did they? It was something that just came to them?"

"With Buffy, yeah. Apparently Cordy's visions can be passed on by kissing. Sometimes. I offered to kiss her once, maybe a year ago, so I could see the stock market trends, but she got mad." It apparently wasn't voluntary anyway, worse luck.

"I see," Ayesha said slowly. "Well, to the best of my knowledge no one's ever produced a method of fate manipulation based on some other divination form. It might be possible, of course; I'm not sure anyone has ever tried."

"I suppose you don't have much reason to with the Loom right here," Anya acknowledged.

They stood above it now. Or below it. Or beside it. The Loom of Fate was a mind-bending mechanism to watch, if mechanism was the right word. Images flickered through its silken threads as she watched. Lovers quarreled and separated. Wars fizzled; treaties were broken. Companies went out of business. In Nexus, a man murdered a rival in a jealous rage. In Whitewall, a pair of feuding families took the matter to court and settled it at last. She could see other things than endings, if she searched for them, but endings were easiest. And anyway, when you had a hammer, everything looked like a nail. A library burned down on the Blessed Isle, and a priceless tome's secret knowledge was forever hidden. A couple near Halta sold the family farm and set out to find their fortune as Guild merchants.

"Is the knowledge settling properly?" Ayesha asked. "Normally it does, but on the rare occasions something goes wrong it tends to be with those who've had a lot of information implanted."

"Had a few headaches," Anya said ruefully, "but nothing worse than that." She spoke the answer in perfect Old Realm. With Ayesha's accent, though. "I was about convinced you were going to leave me to Mister Kojak."

"Kejak," Ayesha corrected absently. "And you must be joking. He has too much pull by far to not get his turn first, if he wants it, but he knows we're all better off when we share students. To a degree, at least." She glanced at the Loom. "Nazri will have his turn last, and then we'll begin finding out what teachers work best for you. You do seem to have an affinity with Chejop where martial arts are concerned, more's the pity, but I'd like to see you work with Lupo at least a few sessions when he gets back."

"He's good?" Anya flinched suddenly. A hand had just shattered her power center with a rock. "Sorry, I...."

"It's okay. The future happens," Ayesha said gently. "No one I know of can match Chejop, but Lupo knows some things he doesn't."

"I've started to wonder if Chejop doesn't know best about Xander's life," Anya said pensively. She kicked a loose pebble on the floor, sending it spinning out into the Loom.

"Of course you have," Ayesha agreed. "He's Chejop, and in many ways you're still a jumped-up mortal. That's another reason we trade students at the moment. With effort, he could persuade any new student he wanted, and then where would we be? But in practice he needs help from us to get everything done, and he knows it. And even he understands the dangers of groupthink, so long as it's not Solar-related."

"He knows better than to make everyone think just like him," Anya said dryly.

"Exactly," Ayesha said. "Bad for the bureau. In any case, I've taught you what I can about astrology. I hope you'll take the time to learn from others, but in the meanwhile what do you think of sorcery?"

"I used to be pretty good with it, actually. I got out of practice while I was a demon, and when I lost...when I became human again, I think I somehow lost that magic too." She'd never really understood how that had happened, but perhaps it had something to do with truly becoming Anya Jenkins. Or....

"Maybe it simply weakened your Essence. You might have regained those powers now. I'll happily test you on some spells, and initiate you again if you need it--though I can't say I've ever heard of that happening." The dark woman gave Anya a look of frustration and amusement. "But you're many things I've never heard of."

**The Thermodynamics of Heaven**

For the first time Rupert Giles could remember, Willow groaned with frustration, put her face against the pages, and mumbled, "I don't get it."

"I suppose I should not be surprised," he mused. "I couldn't follow it either."

"Nor I," Wesley acknowledged. Tara merely shook her head.

"I believe the topic may require a truly superhuman intelligence to properly fathom," Giles said reluctantly. "Therefore, none of us qualify."

"I got a few bits," Willow protested. "The 'supermote engine' has to be an Exaltation."

"Well, yes," Wesley began, annoyed.

"The trouble with analyzing it was how hard it was to even detect," Willow went on, overriding him. "Even the ancient Solars had to rely on what it used--Essence--instead of what it was. Like working out how a car ran by studying gasoline."

"I get _that_ ," Gunn said. "Don't see where you found it, though."

"It doesn't matter," Willow said with a shake of her head. "The Solars had to analyze the Exaltations by what they did--find heroes and manipulate Essence. But it was like breaking open a computer and finding nothing but solid plastic--minus the breaking part, because nothing could."

"That's more than I understood," Tara said encouragingly. "Maybe--"

Willow made a grouchy face. "All that was in the introduction and the conclusions. The rest is math I can't follow and words that aren't in my vocabulary." She plopped back onto the table. "I guess I won't understand Exaltation unless I actually Exalt. Maybe not even then. _Xander_ has a better chance than me."

"We still have the capacity to hypothesize," Wesley pointed out, trying to be helpful.

Willow rose from her seat and began pacing. There was more room for that now that Anya had been given the entire floor. She'd said the Sidereals were talking about assigning her a nearby manse, though not one of the better ones. She was a promising student, but still a student. Willow had gotten some comfy chairs brought into the room, but for computing devices there was nothing better than an abacus that could be afforded, and Anya'd said no.

"We can't test our hypotheses, though," Willow said finally. "Except by asking Anya to try things for us, and when is she even here?" She sat down again with a thump. "And apparently Sidereals aren't even able to come up with new powers, which even Terrestrials can. That limits what we can test with her. We need the others."

On that point, at least, Giles could hardly disagree.  
*****  
"So, what do you say?" Anya held on grimly to her brightest smile.

"Henh," the being grunted. It had identified itself as Criosyn, God of Artifact Production Breeding Program 113-JH-sub-4, whatever that was, and now that was how it placed its countersignature on the prayer strip. Poor guy had been homeless for decades at least. "There you go."

It wasn't anything really important, just a practice petition to alter the destiny of a single Guild chapterhouse, but best to get started early. It boggled her mind that no one had used this yet. "And there you go." She handed him a few coins. Not much, but enough to make a good meal. With careful planning and investment, Anya had calculated out that she could personally employ most of the neighborhood inside a year, and for better pay than she was giving this guy.

"Good work, Dawn." Anya felt like she was bubbling over...like...well, like a shaken soda and that was definitely not the right image.

"Seriously?" Dawn asked. "Anyone can sign those things?"  
She hastily scribbled down the name of the next god in line, which resembled an animate crystalline horseshoe crab.

"Regulation 13, section 194," Anya quoted. "In the interest of interdepartmental solidarity, any god may countersign petitions for the Bureau of Destiny to be processed by the pattern spiders, save as indicated in subsections 4 through 8 regarding kickbacks, forbidden deities, and the harassment of important personages."

"But he's living in a box," Gunn protested.

"Not in a few weeks he won"t be," Anya effused. "Behold the power of capitalism."

"So, um...this isn't a kickback?" Dawn wondered.

"Of course not," Anya explained. "He's an employee. And these wonderful people," she said with a hand waving at the crowd of gods gathering in the dirty alley, "are my personal staff. Hired on my own nickel. I'm perfectly within my rights."

"Yeah, I just hope you're sure of that," Gunn said, and waved the next god forward. The elderly woman looked haggard and seedy, wrapped in a dirty grey robe. "Case in point: Resolute Speaker of Truth, God of Honest Lawyers."  
*****  
"I'm not saying we should all go," Dawn insisted. "I'm saying it'll be less crowded if some of us leave. Some of us should go keep Fred and Xander company. Some of us should wait to go see Buffy and Spike...um, and Angel when we figure out how to get to them. And a couple of us should maybe stay here with Anya so we don't all forget her. We can rotate that out?"

"We're not exactly welcome here," Wesley pointed out. "They allow us to remain on sufferance because Anya wishes it. That does not mean we will be permitted to return if we leave."

"Maybe I can get us an in," Cordelia suggested, drawing stares. "No, seriously. My visions come from the Powers That Be, right? And I had one since we got here, about Fred Exalting. So since we're cut off from our world, doesn't that imply it was sent from here? Where else would the Powers That Be...be, if not heaven?"

"That sounds plausible enough," Giles agreed. "Perhaps even from these...Celestial Incarnae? They sound rather similar."

"Except for that great big monkey on their backs," Dawn argued. Tara frowned at the kitten in her arms. Dawn had said she'd found it on the streets, and most of them had believed her, but Tara seemed skeptical.

"No, actually, makes sense to me," Gunn said. "When have the PTBs ever gotten off their asses and done anything themselves?"

Tara looked briefly scandalized. She seemed convinced that this world's Gaia was the Goddess. "Dawn," she asked suddenly, "may I see Miss Kitty?

Dawn nodded and handed the cat over. She'd found early on that Miss Kitty didn't vanish if someone else took her when she got home and Willow had picked the kitten up at once. "It doesn't matter what they are," she said. "Won't the Maidens be interested regardless? Cordy can see the future without any rituals or anything. If they're not sending the visions, wouldn't they be interested in finding out who is?" 

"Probably," Tara said. "Maybe Anya should take her to work tomorrow." She stroked the kitten, who squirmed in her grasp.

"Right," Cordy said irritably. "Because we get along so well." Dawn couldn't remember them even talking much, though eventually Anya had mentioned granting Cordelia's wish.

"To make arrangements for the rest of us," Wesley insisted. Cordy sighed and then nodded.

"It was a good suggestion, Dawn," Tara said as she handed the kitten back. "I'm glad you're speaking up more."

"I dunno," Dawn said, patting Miss Kitty on the head. "I guess I just feel more confident lately."

"Good to hear it. Y-you'd tell us if anything happened, right? Like if you Exalted too?"

"It's not gonna happen," Dawn said with a sigh. "I'm not really hero girl. But I'd tell you if it did. I promise."

Tara nodded and moved on.  
*****  
"Well," Ayesha said nervously, "now we know you can't cast our sorcery, at least." Anya's first attempt at producing an Infallible Messenger had done _something_ \--it had produced a flash of blinding Essence light from her anima--but had otherwise been totally ineffective. A subsequent attempt had done nothing at all. That was more than Ayesha normally expected from an ineffective attempt at casting spells, but there was no clear way of being sure why it wasn't working.

"Maybe sorcery just works differently in my world," Anya suggested. That wasn't necessarily unreasonable.

"Or perhaps it's a matter of incompatible Essence in some way. We can't readily absorb energy from the Underworld, for instance," Ayesha reminded her. Anya was retaining an incredible amount of her training. Partly she was simply intelligent, partly she was vastly experienced, and partly her world and time seemed to have technology at least roughly comparable to the Shogunate's. Perhaps she'd prove to have an aptitude for magitech. That would be interesting and undoubtedly useful. "Anyway, the only thing we can do by way of finding out is see whether we can initiate you."

Anya nodded, though to Ayesha it looked as if she might be taking the excuse to study Ayesha's desk. "I don't remember much about learning to use magic the first time around, but it wasn't fun. At least I didn't have to hang from the gallows tree like Odin learning runes."

Ayesha blinked. "Hang from.... Well, probably not. The final initiation is a sacrifice, but more than likely it's not going to be something culturally familiar. Quite frequently it's the opposite."

"Final initiation? There's more than one?" Anya pulled out a piece of green paper and began running it through her fingers in what seemed to be some sort of soothing gesture for her.

"There are five initiations, or steps to initiation. I could always just send you to Department 137, but I suspect you might need a more personalized approach. The first four initiations, of Serenity, Battles, Secrets, and Journeys, can happen in any order, but the Initiation of Endings is always the last. I don't want to tell you too much about them ahead of time, to be honest." Ayesha tapped her chin thoughtfully. "I wonder what you fear."

Anya visibly shuddered merely at the mention of her fears. Hopefully that wasn't going to be a problem. Wasn't this a woman who had been a demon, and who had then fought demons with her friends? What could she be afraid of?

"There's always the possibility," Ayesha pointed out, "that you have been through some of these initiations already. It's not unheard of for a sorceror to pass through all five informally in the course of their life--though clearly you haven't been through them all, not yet. Salina encoded the knowledge of magic into Creation itself so that sorcerors could initiate and even learn spells without having to formally study under a master."

"I wonder," Anya said quietly. "Would you be interested in meeting Willow? She's particularly powerful."

"A mortal sorceress?" Such people existed, of course. "She can't possibly have reached beyond the first Circle. It doesn't work that way. Well...rumor has it a few powerful god-bloods have done so. She'd have to be descended from someone like a third-circle demon or one of the Incarnae or something of that nature, though. I suppose that would be an interesting meeting on that account, at least."

"Willow's the most powerful witch I know." Anya emphasized the point by leaning forward, her eyes meeting Ayesha's for the first time in a while. "If I thought any mortal could beat an Exalted, it'd be her. Even if she did get schooled by that Deathknight."

Ayesha tried not to laugh. A mortal defeat an Exalt? That'd be the day. "Don't bet on it, Anya."

"That depends," Anya said. "What odds are you giving her? Hundred to one? Thousand to one?"

"A million to one would be generous," Ayesha said.

"Then she only has to do it once," Anya pointed out, "and you're set for life."  
*****  
"Ow!" Dawn's eyes went wide. "You slapped me!"

Tara drew back her hand again, though she stared at it as she did. "Dawn... _why_? She tried to kill you! She would have destroyed the world. She _broke my mind_ , Dawn. Why are you meeting with Glory?"

"I'm not--"

"Don't lie to me, Dawn! I saw her! What's the matter with you?" Tara seized her by the hand and dragged her away from the bar and into the alleyway. Even that was paved with huge, regular stones, though the ivy growing up the walls was sickly.

"She doesn't even know us," Dawn tried to explain. "None of that's ever happened. I think this is the past. A past, anyway."

"I don't care!" She'd never seen Tara get this angry. "I can't believe she's different, Dawn. She'll do the same thing again if she thinks she needs to. She doesn't care about you, or me, or anyone."

"She doesn't act like--" Dawn paused. This line wasn't getting her anywhere. "She knows what I am, Tara."

"What do you mean, she knows what you are?" Tara's fist balled up and uncurled again. She wasn't a fighter, at least not with her fists. Sometimes you forgot she could be angry at all. "You're human, Dawn. And yes, you're the Key, but we know that, and you've never been able to do anything with it. You don't need to know--"

"Tara, I'm _not_!" Dawn pulled out of Tara's grip, and the witch recoiled from her for the first time Dawn could remember. "I'm not human. Not really. This Glory...she said...she said I was a raksha. One of what these people call the Fair Folk." Tara's eyes widened. She knew the real stories about fairies, not just the sanitized fairy tales that were left in children's stories. "And I know better than to just trust her, but...I can do things."

"What kind of things?" Tara's voice was...strange. Fragile.

Dawn fumbled for something to tell her. "I...made...Miss Kitty. I didn't find her. She's...she came from me. Buffy can't do that. Anya can't do that. It's not an Exalted thing, it's...I'm different." Her voice dropped. "Glory says I don't have to be...me...if I don't want to. But I do."

Tara thought about that. "Are you sure she was telling the truth? Maybe she told you that because she doesn't expect you to try."

"Well, in that case, I'd have to try it if I were going to prove her wrong, wouldn't I? I don't want to. I like being me." She couldn't face that. Not unless she had to to stay alive. Maybe not even then. She was Dawn. She was Buffy's sister. If she wasn't that, then who was she?

But if she was, why did Tara's anger make her feel less...hungry?  
*****  
"Worse than demons?" Anya frowned. "Not that some demons can't be useful, productive members of society, but--"

"For one thing," Nazri persisted, "people are prone to think you can make peace with the Fair Folk. Most people know demons are always a threat. More than that, though, demons are _bound_. Malfeas is a prison. To the raksha, the Wyld is _home_. They like it there. And they want to spread it here. We can't survive that."

Anya tried not to sigh. She'd anticipated getting along with Nazri, more than Ayesha or especially Chejop. He was reasonable about most things. This obsessive bit, though...if they did somehow get rid of the Fair Folk, would he turn on demons next? People who used to be demons?

"I know you've spent most of your...adventuring days fighting against demons," Nazri said. He flipped through the book on his desk. "It's not an invalid thing to do by any means, and I suppose you know first-hand what demons are like."

"The demons I knew? They remind me a lot of here, actually. Petty bureaucrats fighting with each other while the world gets away from them." She could be tactful. When she chose to be. It didn't usually get her what she wanted. "Your factions. The gods. The demons here seem to at least have their act together."

"I suppose that would make them more dangerous," Nazri said dryly. He could be very, very dry when he thought she was being foolish. "The Fair Folk are sometimes like that within their courts, but even then madness rules. It's merely the kind of madness that requires forms in quintuplicate and green ink and then loses your papers five times a year."

"Oh." Anya considered that. "I've dealt with worse." Nazri raised an eyebrow at her. He didn't believe her. Dumbass. "As for the Fair Folk, we at least have stories left about what they were like. I'll try not to do anything stupid."

Nazri sighed. "Down to brass tacks, then, I suppose. Do try to remember what I told you."  
*****  
"Anya!" Tara virtually jumped out of her seat. "I told them you should be included in this discussion."

"Er...of course I should. I should be included in any Scooby discussion. Why haven't I been?" This was an alarming development, almost as bad as the idea that Xander had been sleeping with other women.

Willow made a particularly impatient-looking frown. "I didn't want to leave you out exactly but Giles talked me into starting without you. We were talking about transhumanism."

"Trans-what? Is Xander sleeping with Captain Redfang too?" This was getting serious. Maybe she needed to reconsider Iron Siaka's flirting, if only to make Xander jealous.

"Huh--oh. No, Anya. Transhumanism's about the idea of developing beyond humanity. With powers, mostly." Willow should have been getting into one of her bubbly moods, but she seemed far too agitated. "Usually it's a technological development--"

"The Exaltations are technological," Wesley put in, "after a fashion at least."

"Lemme guess," Cordy asked, "this is one of those 'sufficiently advanced technology' things?"

"That's it exactly," Willow blurted out. "Clarke thought he was being metaphorical, but magic is literally a technology we don't fully understand the basis of yet. It's a means of manipulating the world. That's what technology is."

"Okay," Anya said. She tried to keep up with the times, but this was something she hadn't heard of. "So I was transhuman before and now I'm transhuman again. Is that a problem?"

Wesley looked nervously at Giles. Tara looked anxiously at Willow. Cordelia and Gunn groaned, and Dawn...well, Dawn seemed to be pretending she was somewhere else.

"She cuts to the heart of things, doesn't she?" Wesley said to Giles, ignoring her.

"I'm not a demon anymore," Anya pointed out hastily.

"We kn-n-now you aren't," Tara hurried to add. "The discussion wasn't even about you, really. I-it was about Buffy."

"Wesley thinks that Buffy's getting too powerful," Willow muttered. "That she's dangerous and that maybe...." Her face grew flushed and she came to a halt.

"That perhaps the wisest course of action is to leave her here," Giles finished for Willow. "Where there are structures and institutions of power capable of dealing with her."

"And inevitably your name came up," Gunn added. "Along with Xander's and Fred's."

"This is why you always let Slayers die after a couple of years, isn't it?" Willow's jaw was set and her face red with anger. "They start to scare you if they get too powerful. What about me? Do I scare you too? Huh?"

"Willow, be reasonable." Wesley tugged on his shirt-tails. "Slayers even in our world have conquered nations on rare occasions in the past, if they escaped Council supervision long enough. There was the case of General Saghani, a Mongol during the late Middle Ages--"

"Queen Semiramis of Assyria," Tara said. "Joan of Arc, on the kinda positive side."

"But there is a positive side," Willow insisted. "Power isn't intrinsically evil. Imagine what we could do with more Exaltations in our world."

Cordelia shook her head. "But it wouldn't be us doing the doing. It'd be just the handful of people with the powers."

"Once they got past a certain point," Gunn said, "there'd be nothing that could stop them if they did go bad."

"Which is why we need to figure them out," Willow pressed on. "So we can make more. They're not just some intrinsic state-of-the-world thing, they were made."

"As weapons," Giles pointed out.

"Sweetie, you said yourself you couldn't begin to understand how to do that," Tara reminded Willow.

"It can be done," Willow insisted. "It happened once, so it can happen again."

Looked like it was up to her to get the discussion back on track. "You want to leave us behind," Anya said flatly.

"It isn't as if you're bereft of support," Wesley pointed out. "You have the backing of heaven itself. Fred is the ruler of Luthe, with Xander as her general, and Buffy is monarch of Gem. Should we tear them away from that?"

"Buffy wants to leave," Tara reminded him. "She's only doing these things to stop the prophecy from coming true."

"Does she have the right to just leave now?" Gunn asked.

"Does she have the right to stay and risk ending this world?" Tara countered. For some reason she looked at Dawn, who was being as quiet as a mouse even with her sister on the line.

"I'm not going to stay," Anya said, making her voice as hard as possible. "I'll learn as much as I can here, but you've all pointed out that this world is basically a hell dimension."

"How much of that is the Exaltations?" Wesley asked.

"How much is the Yozis and the Neverborn and the Fair Folk?" Willow responded, leaning across the table. Dawn flinched, which made a strange thought flicker into Anya's mind, and she opened her mouth.

"You're forgetting something," Dawn said suddenly. "Faith." Her eyes slid rapidly across Anya's face, begging her to keep quiet.

Anya changed what she had been about to ask. "Faith's Exalted too, isn't she? She's a Slayer."

"As a matter of fact," Giles said, "that's open to some question. I doubt that Exaltations can be copied or shared so easily, and it seems there are only ten Slayer Exaltations in existence. Eleven counting Buffy, but that may be a case of temporal overlap of some sort. The odds that Faith is also a Slayer, as we thought, are quite low."

"She's some other kind of Exalt?" Dawn asked. "What're the odds the Council doesn't know how to deal with her as well as they think?"

For the first time Wesley seemed to reconsider his position. "Rather high, I should imagine."

"Then it's settled," Willow said firmly. "We have to go back eventually, even if it's just to find out what Faith is doing."

"And take four other Exalts with us?" Cordy wondered.

"Who else is gonna deal with her?" Willow asked.

It was a fair point. Only, it made Anya wonder: if it didn't end with Faith, who would deal with _them_?  
*****  
"She knows." Tara stood in Dawn's way. "You can't hide it from her."

"That's why I'm leaving," Dawn said, picking up a satchel. "She said there was a place I could go. That she could teach me better there."

"Who said?" Anya had come up behind Tara.

Dawn looked up at her, a mouse in a trap, and said nothing.

"A raksha?" Anya asked, quietly for once. "Or a demon? I'm not going to get all judgemental, Dawn. You know me."

"A raksha," Dawn whispered. "Like me."

Tara tried not to let the pain show on her face; from Anya's eyes, she saw she had failed. "Glory," she added.

"What?" Anya's eyes bulged. "Dawn, she's obviously lying. She just wants to go home, same as she did in our world. She's trying to get you to--"

Dawn flickered out of existence. An instant later, she reappeared, inches away, gasping with pain. "She didn't say...how much...that hurts."

"But not in the Wyld," Tara guessed.

Dawn shook her head. "The Wyld is home. At least that's what she says. Our Glory...she'd been away way too long. She was broken. I hate her, Anya, but who else is going to teach me?"

Anya grabbed her by the shoulders. "Dawn, you don't need to learn the things raksha do. Don't do it. You don't want to be one of them, not if Glory was one."

Dawn shook Anya's hand off. "It doesn't matter what I want. I am one. I was before we ever met. I'm a burden on you guys. I'll never be special the way you and Buffy are."

Tara gave it her best try. "You're special in your own way, Dawn."

"Yes. I am." Dawn set her jaw. "You said you wouldn't get judgy, Anya. Liar."

Anya threw up her hands. "Who's being judgy? I just think you're making a mistake."

"My sister's spent her whole life running from her powers," Dawn muttered. "Where'd it get her? She could've beaten Glory before all this happened. We'd be home right now. We'd all be home. I'm the Key. I'm our best shot at making it back. But I have to know what I am."

The door creaked open and all three jumped. "Not interrupting something, am I?" Someone vaguely familiar strode into the room.

Anya blinked, then glanced at Tara. Distraction? Yeah, distraction was good. "Hi, Iron Siaka. That's an interesting look for you. No breasts. What happened?"

Iron Siaka glared. "What's this about going home, Anya? You haven't even finished your training." Tara struggled to work out what was different about the Sidereal. Anya had said "no breasts", so presumably Siaka usually had some. They _had_ spoken, hadn't they? "You know nobody will know you."

"Nobody knew me anyway," Anya explained reasonably. "Just these few friends, and they're managing ok. But even if I stayed, they still want to go eventually. Wouldn't you rather mortals stopped cluttering up heaven?"

Iron Siaka shrugged broadly. She...was it she? Anya had mentioned breasts...had very broad shoulders. "Valid point. Can I talk to you alone? You do have your own room, right?" Dawn tilted her head quizzically as if she were just as puzzled as Tara.

"Last one on the left," Anya said. "The big bedroom. We've been remodeling. What's going on?"

That was what Tara wanted to know. But Siaka just gave Anya a wink and a grin--Tara must have misheard; Siaka surely had never had breasts--and motioned toward the private room.

"What was that about?" Dawn wondered as they walked off. The door swung shut behind them.

"Not a clue." Iron Siaka had looked as if he were trying to get Anya into bed, but surely Anya would shut that down.  
*****  
"Good look for you," Anya said patiently. "Nice muscly shoulders. You went to a lot of trouble."

"You have no idea," Siaka said, yawning. "Sorry, I'm a little sleepy. Trading off hearthstones isn't forbidden but we don't do it much. Too much trouble. But I called in a few favors."

Anya nodded. Hearthstones made her nostalgic. "Are you on assignment? You're very attractive." Surely this wasn't a personal visit. She'd made it clear that the marriage was strictly a business arrangement, hadn't she?

Siaka rolled her eyes. "Is that a joke? Anya, look, I know you've got a long-term relationship going on. You're extremely lucky. There aren't many Sidereals and most other people forget us. I'm not looking for that." She peeled off her shirt in one smooth motion. "I just want you to cheat on your cheating boyfriend with me. One time." Was that a six-pack? She'd known Siaka was a big, tough kind of girl. "Is that too much to ask? You see how hard up I am."

Anya lifted her eyebrows. "Yes. Yes I do. What the hell. Sure. He deserves it. Just don't think I'm leaving him for you."

"I'm under no illusions," Siaka said, sliding out of her trousers. "You told off Chejop Kejak. You won't dump him for me."

Anya's gut churned at the mention of Chejop. "About him and Xander...I've been rethinking. Ayesha and Nazri put in good arguments too but maybe Chopjob is right. Xander wouldn't want...to hurt anyone. He...I...."

"Ssshhh." Siaka put a finger to Anya's lips. "Hold that thought. As much as I like hearing you come around, now is not the time. I don't want this to be an excuse for me to talk you into things." She replaced the finger with her lips, briefly. "This is a fling. It can be more later if you want, but it's a fling now."

"Thought we were married," Anya said, laughing nervously. Was Faith a Solar? Was that what--? Siaka's next kiss drove such thoughts away. Stubble. She had stubble.

"Told you relationships get weird when you're Siddie."  
*****  
"And she just walks out," Tara sighed. She sank into a soft chair.

"Is she with Xander or isn't she?" Dawn's voice was still heated. Tara understood.

"Dawnie, I don't pretend to understand what goes through Anya's head, even when there's no boys involved. But she and Xander are in a really weird place right now." She patted the chair arm. "Come sit."

"He couldn't remember her," Dawn grumbled. "It's not his fault." She took a seat, but a few feet over. Maybe it just looked more comfortable.

"Not with Nelumbo, no, but things with...that Lunar are more complicated. And it still hurts her, even if he didn't mean to cheat." Tara pulled an apple from a nearby bowl and began to slice it. "And yes, this will hurt him back and she knows it."

"But then why...?"

Tara almost said "to even things out" which was true but would invite questions she had no answers for. Instead she handed Dawn the first slice. "Even if there was no one else, just this...Exalting thing could break them. No one remembers Sidereals. Even if Xander does, imagine if no one remembered your husband. And the time limit's all gone. They could both live for thousands of years now."

"Or they could die tomorrow, just like Buffy." Dawn popped the fruit in her mouth to avoid showing her hurt on her face. Tara started to agree and explain how that still changed things, but.... "What if Slayers had been taught the stuff they needed to know? Buffy's practically invulnerable now."

"Dawnie, that's true, but...p-power changes you. It's changed Anya and Xander. It'll change you too, you know?" It had changed Willow.

Goddess, what would she do if Willow _did_ Exalt?  
*****  
Anya woke to an empty bed.

Iron Siaka had been clumsy with a penis. Sure, teaching her had been fun, and she had definitely been skilled in other ways. Xander was better, though, even if he couldn't make her orgasm with a kiss anymore now that they were both Exalted.

Iron Siaka was nice, and blunt, and she knew how to play rough. She didn't object to talk of eviscerations, either. Just made jokes about bashing demon brains with her mace. Her goremaul. Sheesh.

Anya wasn't in love with her, though.

Somehow she and Xander were going to have to patch things up. She wasn't happy with sharing Xander with a Lunar mate, but then she was the one who'd gotten married. However weirdly.

It was time to go wake Cordy. They'd go to the Bureau together and ask some questions about the visions.

Siaka hadn't even left a note.

There was someone pounding on the door. "I'm up, Cordelia!" Cordy was eager to get to the Bureau and see what she could learn. If they told her anything.

Anya shrugged on a robe and stepped into the main room. No Cordy. But--

The knocking was coming from the front door. She unlatched it. "Sorry, just now--"

A lion put a paw on her shoulder. A gigantic lion carved from shining gold that gleamed in the noonday sun. "By order of Shining Barrator, you are hereby informed of your impending audit, Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins. You have one month to gather evidence on your behalf. This is a general audit; you have not been accused of specific crimes. However, I have been instructed to inform you that the gathering of unemployed divinities at your residence is a suspicious matter."

Audit?!

At least there wouldn't be any bunnies.  
*****  
The shimmering sands went on forever, sparkling like diamonds. Above them it soared, a crystalline bubble, barely visible. Faint flickers of light revealed it vaguely, only to conceal the occupants. Even after thousands of years, Dragon King technology put all but the higher feats of Celestial engineering to shame.

"Will we three really be enough?" His voice muffled behind a veil, Black Ice Shadow had pulled a cowl down over his eyes as well. Even with virtually no flesh showing, the ever-present sun left him ill at ease.

"If not us, Mnemon's army will take her." Crimson Banner Executioner was even more concealed than Shadow, as he always was on a mission. The ancient battlesuit he wore hid him from head to toe. "Which isn't optimal, but at least she won't be turning Gem into a Yozi beachhead."

"But that won't tell us what she is," Shadow reminded Crimson. "Just a powerful akuma, or something more as Anya claims?"

"A 'Green Sun Princess'?" Crimson sounded as if he were rolling his eyes. "The Yozis aren't that imaginative."

Shadow grunted and shook his head. "Perhaps not. But statistically, we aren't seeing enough Deathknights _or_ Solars about. If the Deathknights really are corrupted Solars, and some are still missing, we need to be prepared for the Yozis to have their fingers in the pot as well."

"Hey, guys, not that this stuff's not mission-critical, but don't forget the other reason we don't want to leave this up to Mnemon." Iron Siaka was just glad to be back in her own shape. Anya was almost good enough in bed to really be the ludicrous age she claimed, yet that still wasn't enough to do without her own boobs for more than a couple of hours. She stifled a yawn. Still didn't have her lullaby stone back.

"What's that?" Crimson asked. "Oversight tell you something they didn't mention to us?"

"Nah," Siaka said. She kept her eyes on the peak growing slowly on the horizon. "Just that if Mnemon gets to be the one to take out Buffy Summers, it'll be cause we're in pieces on the palace floors. Me? I got fun times to look forward to."

As long as it didn't entail more than a couple of hours at a time with that...thing...wagging in front of her? Married life might be pretty good.  
*****  
"I hate to tell you this, Anya, I really do." Ayesha Ura unfolded the audit paperwork on her desk. "Your friends' testimony isn't going to be admissible."

"What? Why not?" Any moment now Ayesha was going to inform her that rabbits were testifying against her. "They're trustworthy adults."

Ayesha took a deep breath and released it in a sigh. "Unfair though it may seem, there is one very good reason mortals have no rights here. Manipulation. Just as Chejop could tie most Exalts and gods around his little finger if he found it expedient, even the least Dragon-Blood can entangle most mortals. Nothing your friends say can be trusted because we can't presume they're acting of their own free will."

"I see. So the people who actually know me are going to be presumed unfit to testify." Anya wanted to grind her teeth. Instead she buried her anger under a facade of mock cheer. Most people figured she didn't understand how serious a situation was when she did that. "Which leaves anyone who dislikes me free to rake me over the coals because an ex-demon _might_ be dangerous."

Ayesha nodded. "It's a shame. Powerful friends could spare you a lot of trouble, though."

This was it? This was their play to make her choose sides? They did _not_ understand who they were dealing with. "So basically I need Celestial Exalted on my side. Or I could end up living in a box with my salary garnished away and still having to run flunky ops for the Bureau. Is that how it goes?"

"That would be the size of it, Anya." Ayesha offered her a sheaf of papers. "I can guarantee you backing from a dozen Sidereals if you'll allow yourself to be guided by me and Lupo."

"These are what? Subpoenas?"

"Essentially. I'll tell you who to name. We'll take care of you, Anya. Everyone wants an up-and-comer like you on their side." Ayesha's smile was very wide, very ingratiating, and very fake.

"I know who to name." Anya peeled back three pages. "They want Celestial Exalts? I'll give them three who know me better than anyone you can offer." Alexander Harris. Winifred Burkle. And Buffy Anne Summers.

And if all hell broke loose in heaven, the gods would just have to deal.


	21. Horizons

"Aaand...fight!"

Xander dropped back, assuming the Form. The idea of facing off against Fred was more than a little unnerving. Sure, he'd gotten used to the idea that Buffy could kick his ass, but that was when he was Joe Sixpack, not the Dread Pirate Roberts, Zenith caste and scourge of the West. He didn't hit beanpole girls like Fred.

Fred's body shimmered and rippled. Was she going to change shape? But all that happened was that patterns of light and shadow slithered across her form. Xander squinted. She was still there, just a lot harder to keep his eyes on.

"Good, good. One Wire Among Many," Nelumbo intoned. She was a hell of a lot better at this than Giles. Which wasn't his doing, of course. He wasn't a cyborg with centuries of past lives. Just a highly-trained member of a centuries-old organization that had no idea they were training Exalts. Life was surreal.

While he was thinking all that, Fred had vanished. Great. Xander spun, searching for her...nothing. Where...? Fred's fists slammed into his face as she pivoted down from the ceiling on weblines.

"Good, Fred! Xander, pay attention! You're better than this!" Nelumbo had sounded almost offended when Fred questioned whether she really needed to know how to fight. No, skip the 'almost'; there was no question about it. Fred might not fight with her fists as often, Nelumbo said, but she had better know how.

He had to do it. Xander pretended she was Ebon Siaka and drove both fists into Fred's back, sending her flying out of the web and into the wall. "Heaven Thunder Hammer!" Nelumbo called out. "Good!"

Nelumbo didn't believe in singling out power moves from one style except in solo practice. Once you knew them well enough to spar, you sparred with everything you had. The only exception was if your weapon didn't fit into the style, or he'd have his daiklaive out too. Thank God he didn't have to worry about beheading Fred on top of everything else.

Fred rose without apparent effort, her anima flaring into a bubble of silvery light surrounding a core of shadow. The light compressed itself into a flattened disc, just wide enough to surround her body. "Light-Treading Technique! Good form!" Nelumbo called. Fred lunged at him, moving much faster than before. If only he knew what the kind of martial art Fred was being trained in was...and now he was the one sent flying. "Put them together, Fred. Give me Flashing Passage!"

Fred dashed toward him as he rose, but if she was doing anything new he couldn't see it. He countered with a Thunderbolt Rush punch and was appalled to feel the bones of her nose give way. "Ahh! Fred! Are you ok?"

"She's fine," Nelumbo snapped. "Try again, Fred. Flashing Passage!"

Fred staggered for a moment, blood trickling from her nostrils, and hurtled sideways. Again, though--nothing new.

"Nelumbo, I broke her nose!" He kept his guard up, though. She had drilled that in.

The sifu looked at him as if he were wearing a dunce cap. "You broke her nose. Roberts, the two of you are Exalted. You're on a First Age city-ship with unimaginable medical supplies. There's no immediate threat from outside. I want to see you fight till one or both of you gets their chest caved in! You'll get over it, I promise." She couldn't be serious. "Fred, again! Flashing Passage, damn it!"

Before he could protest further, Fred lunged at him...and vanished. Where...? Something latched onto his arm and dragged him backwards. Webline! He started to spin, and Fred's armored fist caught him on the side of the head, hard, staggering him.

"She's not that good, Roberts!" Nelumbo sounded annoyed. "You're a Solar and she's not even in beast form! Wipe the floor with her!"

No one else seemed to agree with Nelumbo's assessment. Of course, he was surrounded by Lunars. Nearest were Fred's new friends Kolohi and Renjin, but the gym was full of half-naked--or completely-naked!--Exalts. (It seemed to be a Lunar thing.) Fred was no better right now; her bone carapace was like most of the super-armors in the armories here, molded to match the contours of her body. Fred hadn't been bad-looking before, and now she'd deliberately amped up her curves with her shapeshifting powers. So far he hadn't yet been able to make himself put on a suit that gave him pecs and a sixpack and molded lovingly to his crotch and butt. Wasn't that supposed to be bad construction, with all those inward folds? Armor needed to be solid.

Forgoing fancy moves, Fred began to simply pummel him from behind with considerably greater strength than he had thought she had. They weren't bone-breaking blows--she couldn't make herself nearly as strong as Buffy--but they hurt. The Lunars cheered her on.

"Not good enough, Fred, he's recovering! Beast form now, Lunar!" Fred sighed and stepped back. It wouldn't take long. At least she wouldn't be so pretty. From the sidelines, someone hooted approval as she changed. Raksi. Even Raksi was watching!

Xander took a deep breath, and golden light radiated from him. He heard Fred's breath catch. Oohs and ahs from some of the Lunars. (Though from Raksi he detected only a bored grunt.)

"Shake it off, Fred! He's--Fred?" Xander turned and saw only Nelumbo, left hand on her forehead. "I thought she was going to shake it. Then she took off like a rabbit. Better check on her."

"Go after her," Kolohi agreed. "Luna has her. Probably she'll be ok, but find out what she's up to."

Murmurs rose behind him as he left. "...Solar...told you they weren't so bad..." "...bad? He was..." "...say Anja's his mate..." "...lucky girl!" Jesus, he was popular! When had he ever been popular guy?

"Luna has her?" Nelumbo's voice rose behind him for a moment, but then he turned a corner that blocked much of the sound.

Ahead of him an elevator was going up. These things were fast; it was already passing deck ten, still rising. She was heading for her cabin...if you could give that name to a swanky place like hers. He called another lift.

Fred's door was open. Furniture that would have looked improbably fancy in Bill Gates' mansion filled the vestibule. Bedroom, maybe? He put his hand to the doorplate. Locked.

"Go away!" Fred shouted.

"You ok in there?" Her voice should have sounded nasal from the injury--no, she was probably still half-squid. She did sound strange, but the door muffled her voice.

"I'm fine! I'm busy! Stay out, I'd rather not hurt you!" Xander groaned. No telling what she was up to.

"Towers of Azure, this is Admiral Harris. Queen Fred is injured. Can I get a military override?" He pressed his hand to the door again, uselessly.

"Override granted, Amyana. See to her." Much better voice quality than he typically heard at home. A little loopy in the CPU, though. Towers called Fred Amyana sometimes too. The door hissed open.

Fred had a stylus in each tentacle pad, frantically covering the walls in writing that was half English, half Old Realm, and all math, mumbling to herself about home. She heard the door and turned an alien gaze on him. "I told you to _stay out_!"

Then, tentacles flailing, she attacked.

**Chapter 21: Horizons**

In the first few moments it was all Xander could do to keep Fred's tentacles from wrapping around his neck or clawing off his face with knife-ringed suckers. He seized them only to have them writhe around as if he had no hold at all. Jointed rings of bone surrounded them right now, so even slicing at them wouldn't have accomplished much.

Lacking better options, he let go with his right hand, balled up a fist, and drove it into her gnashing beak. Fred's head snapped back so hard that for a moment he thought he'd broken her neck, but she swung bone-edged tentacle pads blindly at his face and he managed to kick her off and roll away.

"Fred? What the hell?" Xander rolled to his feet. Neither of them was much of a combat monster. If they'd been ordinary people he was sure he'd have an edge from fighting vampires longer, but shapeshifting turned that on its ear.

"I just want to be left alone," she snarled. He'd have been glad to leave her alone at this point, but somehow they'd gotten swapped around so that now she was between him and the door. If she even noticed, it didn't show. "I can get us all home, but you have to get out!"

She lunged at him then, tentacles raised to slash at his throat with knife-edged bone. Listening to Nelumbo in his head, he dropped back a step or two, then planted a foot in Fred's midsection. With an explosive sound like cracking stone, fragments of bone burst from her body, vanishing even as they flew in all directions.

That gave her a moment's pause as she realized she was naked, but only a moment's. She was all ropy and a bit slimy anyway, he figured. He needed to end this and end it now.

Fred vanished in a blur, and suddenly he was wrestling with a spider-silk garotte. He couldn't get ahold of it to tear it out of her hands. Trying to pry at her fingers was useless; the tentacle pads gave way without loosening their grip. Xander forced himself to lean forward into the choking strands, then heaved backwards. Her beak clacked shut as his head struck it; he felt its edges tear into his scalp. Then her tentacles went limp, and she slipped free and collapsed on the floor.

"Sorry," he whispered. Something was clearly off about her state of mind. "I wish we could've let you stay home. You didn't belong here." That was careless of him, but no demon-genies cackled and murmured "done", so he figured it would pass this once.

Nelumbo appeared at the door. "Great Maker! Why didn't you come back and finish in the ring?"

Xander took her by the arm. "We weren't sparring anymore. Come on, let's give her some space. She'll be okay."

"Her armor..." Nelumbo trailed off as he led her out. "Someday you'll have to show me these missing techniques and how they work. You hear me, Roberts?"

A weary chuckle escaped from his lips. "Sure thing. When I figure it out myself. Towers of Azure, lock the door again. Keep it that way unless she'll die without help."

"Unlikely," Nelumbo murmured.

"As you request, Amyana," the AI responded.

"Who is this Amyana he keeps calling you?" Nelumbo wondered.

"Queen Amyana, used to rule the city. It's nothing. She calls everyone that."

"Only you and Fred, that I've noticed," Nelumbo said quizzically. "And Fred rules the city now, so I can understand the mistake there."

Xander shook his head. "It's the least of my worries. Let's get back and let her friends know she's ok." He turned down a corridor to get to the nearest elevators.

"You seem to know this place like the back of your hand," Nelumbo said thoughtfully. "Do you know whose Exaltation you inherited? I understand Creation's Exalts pass them along."

"Don't look at me," he said with a shrug. "I don't remember any past lives, if that's what you're asking." She punched the wrong button. "Hey, no, Deck 34. Don't get us lost."

She frowned at him. "I'm not worried."

*****

The next day Fred was fine. Well, better. She seemed a little skittish. Gavrane Tomazri asked after her, deferentially, and she lectured him on being too dependent. He seemed confused, at first. Finally, though, he nodded and started to leave the audience chamber.

"Dread Pirate," he asked as he turned, "might I ask the name of your blade?"

Xander could only shrug in confusion. "It doesn't seem to have one. I hunted through the computer files for it but it just said 'wavecleaver'. It's just a generic wavecleaver daiklaive."

Fred stared at him, Tomazri frowned in confusion, and Peleps Kolohi began to snicker. "Roberts," Kolohi explained, "there's no such thing as a generic daiklaive of any kind. Maybe for a little while in the First Age there were generic jade daiklaives, but I guarantee you that nowadays even the jade ones are either storied family heirlooms or the work of a famous master smith."

"It'd be like saying a Stradivarius violin was generic because it's not unique," Fred said helpfully.

"And anyway, that thing is orichalcum," Kolohi reminded him. "That'd be enough to guarantee it had a name, and nobody I've ever talked to has seen an orichalcum wavecleaver. Heard of a couple, but they're rare as hen's teeth."

"So why isn't the name in the computers?" Xander wasn't really sure why it mattered. He pulled the blade from its sheath and swung it around a bit. Despite its immense size it felt right in his hands.

_\--fighting, retreating, had to reach the command center, but the treacherous Dragonblooded were swarming her like rats--_

Xander staggered, and Kolohi caught him. "What was that? I...I was here, fighting, and...I dunno." That hadn't been him. For one thing, it hadn't been _a_ him. 

"Past life memories," Kolohi suggested. "Maybe you know this blade, and that's why it has returned to you."

"Towers of Azure," Fred asked, "can you identify the daiklaive Admiral Harris has?"

"Wavecleaver," the AI said, unhelpfully.

"Yes," Fred grumbled. "We know it's a wavecleaver daiklaive. Can you tell us its name?"

"Admiral Amyana is holding Wavecleaver," Towers said, a trace of irritation in his voice. "First of that design, clementine, adenine...pardon, my queen. All subsequent models are named for this one, the sword of Luthe's queen, wife of Admiral Arkadi."

"What?" Xander nearly dropped it. "Wait, is it saying I was a girl?"

Kolohi snorted with laughter. "There are worse things, Roberts, I promise."

Fred climbed down off the throne. "Not you exactly. Just your Exaltation. Celestial Exaltations don't much care who they empower except for their basic programming, and they carry memories. Sometimes more, sometimes less."

"Lytek was supposed to prune those memories," said someone whose voice Xander didn't recognize. Fred leapt instantly back to her seat. "Relax, girl. I won't harm you." The speaker was a mountain of a man with bronzed skin and jet-black hair. He was-- "I suppose for the Solars who died in the Usurpation, he never had the chance."

"Leviathan," Fred breathed. "Stay back."

"Still a Lunar Elder, girl." Leviathan stepped forward. "Keep the throne. Keep the city. I've held on far too long. The Gathering is winding down, and I'm here for Amyana."

*****

"Rule it as best you can," Leviathan said. "Deal the justice I never could." He barely fit behind the conference table with the chair jammed against the wall. Had it always fit him that poorly? "Tomazri has my seat," he said, seeing Xander looking at him. The Dragon-Blood's chair was at the corner next to Fred, across from Xander and much further from the wall. "Keep it, keep it. I can manage."

"You mean--?" Fred stammered. "I, uh, I...."

The huge man looked her in the eyes. "Dreamer-of-Reason, I wasted a millennium and a half on an obsession. I could blame Luna, I suppose, but the Fickle Lady would no doubt laugh in my face. I thank you for bringing me to my senses."

Fred began to doodle on the table with her finger. "Then did I really...?"

"You defeated me, quite fairly," Leviathan said, "which is not to say you bested me in open combat. You took my city from me, and that was defeat enough by far.

"I began to realize what was happening during the battle," the huge man explained. "With every vessel I wrecked I was shattering a bit more of my own kingdom. At first it merely enraged me. But when even the Sage fought me openly I began to truly consider what I was doing. I was about to withdraw when he seized me in his coils."

"You still looked enraged when we faced you in the throne room," Tomazri said skeptically.

"Oh, I was," Leviathan said. "At least, a part of me was. It just so happens that was the part of me you faced...and very nearly slew."

"I...I did what?" Fred shrank back a little.

"It is an advanced shapehifter's trick," Leviathan explained. "To become more than one body. I needed to see what you would do. Again, you have nothing to fear from me. Your defeat of me was real. My debt is real. It simply did not entail exactly what you thought it did. I have all my wits about me now for the first time in an Age, so perhaps the debt is all the greater."

"And the Luthea?" Fred asked warily.

"Are your subjects now, along with the Scionborn." Leviathan said. "I will start again. I could not trust myself to rule them fairly after nursing my grudge so long. I will not be seen here, in any form the people of Luthe might recognize, ever again." He turned to face Xander. "When the Dragon-Blooded and the Sidereals rose up against us, I had to choose between Amyana, my love, and my best friend, my Lunar mate Kendik Arkadi. And, perhaps foolishly, I chose love. Perhaps I thought...never mind. Amyana died in my arms."

Xander shivered. For a moment he felt it happening--the life bleeding from him as this mountain of a man cradled him...her...in immense arms. "Um. I...I remember. A little, anyway."

"I do not know if you can care for me. Arkadi could not, not in the way Amyana could. If you wish, I will teach and aid you, and no more. But I have lived an Age since then, and I have learned many things." Leviathan tilted his head, and his body altered. "Perhaps this is more to your liking?" The last was spoken in a deep contralto. Leviathan was only slightly smaller, certainly no less muscular--

"You're a girl?"

Leviathan shrugged massively. "Your Tya friends might have something to say on that matter. I say only that I have no objection to this shape if it better pleases your eyes, Amyana. I have been an orca for centuries, and many other things in my time as well. Truth told, I can hardly see the difference any longer."

Xander rubbed his forehead. What was it with him and strange relationships anyway? "I, ah, I'd be honored to have you as a teacher. Beyond that, ah, we'll have to see. I'm accumulating quite a harem here."

Leviathan raised an eyebrow. "Your own mate, the cat-girl spy. The martial artist with the crystal hair. And your fiancee, the Sidereal elder. That was hardly a harem worth speaking of in my day."

"Elder?" Xander frowned at the idea.

Leviathan laughed thunderously. "Boy, you said yourself that she was over a thousand years old! Even when I was young that was enough to make her an elder, though not of the most ancient cohort, to be sure."

"I just meant she's only been Exalted about a month," Xander mumbled. He thought that was right. Might have to calculate it out.

Even Leviathan's eyes widened momentarily at that. "You'll have to tell me how that happened. I'm sure the leaders are pleased to have an instant elder in their midst. Still, she is one. Be that as it may, I'm sure she'll catch up fast."

The huge Lunar turned to Fred. "You are a clever child. Take advice, but no abuse. I will have my eyes on you." He...she? Xander really would have to bring this up with Captain Redfang...gave Tomazri a regretful look. "My sorrow is inadequate for your suffering. Nonetheless, I am sorry. Ask my aid and I shall come. Otherwise I shall stay away from this place."

Leviathan rose from the table. "Come with me, Amyana. We have much to discuss...and I should show you the source of those hearthstones. They will be difficult for you to reach alone."

Xander shrugged and rose. "Can we stick with 'Dread Pirate' for now?"

*****

Fred watched Xander and Leviathan walk out of the room with a quiver in her stomach. Realistically, she knew that if the elder was lying about holding a grudge, there wasn't a thing she could do. She'd beaten him in an all-out war, and apparently less thoroughly than she'd thought; trying to fight him one-on-one would be something else entirely Maybe the huge number of Lunars on board Luthe right now could take him--but only if they all stood against him, and how likely was that?

Leviathan bowed slightly to someone as he strode out. The door stayed open. And Raksi strolled into the conference room. "Come with me," she said, "Dreamer."

Fred kept her seat. "That's Queen Dreamer to you." It was an empty show of defiance.

Raksi saw through it at once. "And Queen of Fangs to you...Queen Dreamer. Don't worry, I won't bite. Yet."

Nerves still fluttering, Fred stood. "What's this about?"

"We have the Jasmine Gems, Dreamer-of-Reason. If you want to learn sorcery, come." Raksi sneered. "Or stay in your shaky throne, if you prefer."

Fred strode up to her. "You're on."

Raksi led her back down into the bowels of Luthe, down where most of the gathered Lunars had stayed. Many were departing now; a few were already gone. Anja popped out of a lift to join them, giving Raksi nervous looks. "Last-minute replacement," she said. "The real bearer of the peridot's taking my place spying on Thorns."

A Lunar with faint scales across his face emerged from the hangar bay soon after, followed by an older woman with a tuft of feathers who'd been studying the Essence engines.

On the lowest level, the Sage of the Depths waited. "Dreamer-of-Reason. Welcome. Mishiko awaits you. Do you come to us with open mind and heart?"

That was easy. "I do. I am ready to learn." Amid the thrum of engines, Fred crossed her legs and sat down on the floor.

Raksi put down her gem first, a crystal with a jasmine flower encased. Anja put the peridot next to it. The bird woman sat a jasmine azurite down to make a right angle, and the serpent man added a flower-shaped carnelian to make a square. Finally the Sage placed a jasmine-scented agate in the middle.

In that place of metal and surging electric force, a wind sprang up, scented with jasmine. More than scented. Flowers blew on the breeze. And the shining silhouette of a young woman shimmered into being over the stones.

_Hear now the Lore of Journey:  
Where have you not wandered/  
Daughter of the Secret Fire?/  
To you the doors stand open/  
And at your will they close/  
I have seen where you come from/  
Where you are going the Maidens themselves cannot tell/  
And why you travel/  
Only your own heart can know./  
This door you have passed._

"Mishiko declares that she has undergone the Initiation of Journey," Anja said. The Sage grimaced faintly; Anja was no sorceror. But she knew enough of the lore to stand in one's place, for this.

The Lunars patiently reshuffled the stones into a line. Mishiko shimmered and spoke again.

_Hear now the Lore of Tutelage:  
The Dreamer knows not the names you know/  
Yet names you have never heard she can speak/  
Tremble, shinma, for I am become Death, destroyer of worlds/  
Of which she knows their boundary condition: to be unbounded/  
Where shall you sit, oh Dreamer/  
On the stove or in my lap/  
And for how long?/  
I say unto you: stand on the shoulders of giants/  
And become one yourself/  
This door you have passed._

"Mishiko declares that she has undergone the Initiation of Tutelage," the Sage said, somehow managing to sound both smug and confused. And why not? There was no way for him to recognize Oppenheimer, Hawking, Einstein, or even Newton.

This time the sorcerors made a spiral from the gems. The breeze grew chill, and Mishiko spoke again.

_Hear now the Lore of Humility:  
Savant in one world/  
Slave in another/  
Long have you labored/  
For you were betrayed/  
Your Judas shall go unpunished/  
Your studies shall go unpublished/  
For now you have exceeded their grasp/  
And their reach/  
Cow your enemies, oh Dreamer/  
This door also you have passed._

"Mishiko declares that she has undergone the Initiation of Humility," Bird Woman said. "I'm starting to wonder if we shouldn't just pull out the spellbooks."

Another pattern, like a pentagon. And Mishiko's voice grew harsher, though not unkind.

_Hear now the Lore of Fear:  
The sleep of reason breeds monsters, Dreamer/  
Place now the gems in the Station of Sacrifice._

"Huh?" Anja looked around. "She didn't say Fred passed this one. How do we go on to Sacrifice?"

The others exchanged confused stares. Abruptly Raksi spoke up. "Of course. The sacrifice is what she fears. These two stations will be one."

The Sage looked embarrassed. "Right, naturally. It's not a situation I'd encountered while using the gems before."

Raksi grinned with a mouth full of fangs. "I suspect I'm going to enjoy this." She placed her gem in front of Fred. One by one the others encircled her.

And Mishiko wept.

_You must be free, Dreamer-of-Reason/  
Why do you cross the threshold and then look back?/  
You have opened the doorway and stepped out of the past/  
Into your only true home, the future/  
Your dreams will transform this world/  
And every world that is or may be/  
You must not become a pillar of salt/  
But a signpost pointing ever onward/  
Choose, Dreamer, and act._

"What?" Raksi spat. "What is she talking about?"

Fred should have been relieved, especially after Raksi's grin of triumph. Or Mishiko's offhanded reference to breeding monsters, which was not somewhere she wanted to go no matter what other Lunars did here. Hopefully it was just a figure of speech?

But that was evading the issue. All that fancy talk. She should have been excited for the glorious future Mishiko kept talking about. It was all dust and ashes in her mouth now.

"Dreamer-of-Reason?" The Sage crouched down before her.

"Her eyes...they're so empty," Anja said. "Fred? Do you understand what she means?"

Winifred Burkle of Texas forced her mouth to form the words. "She means I'm never going home." And a ring of silver light flared on Dreamer-of-Reason's forehead, swallowing the blackness within.

*****

The submersible came to rest on the ocean bed.

"I helped construct this manse," Leviathan rumbled, "if only by shaping the raw materials. It powers the lesser of your two hearthstones. It has never seen the sun or breathed air. Not easy to attune to unless you don't need the stone to begin with, but there you are."

Xander unfastened his restraints and began donning the Tiger Shark armor he'd brought. He could've just swum down in it, but the submersible had given them time to talk. "You know you don't have to look like that for me, right?"

Leviathan's eyes narrowed. "Of course I do not have to. I choose to. For your comfort. If you would rather, we could always reverse roles."

"Reverse--? Leviathan, I can't--" What was the Lunar trying to say?

"Of course you can't. I can." Leviathan raked a short blade across his arm. "Here. Drink and see."

Drink blood? Generally not one of the good options. Leviathan was demonstrably not a vampire, though. "Ahhh...is that how it works?" He bent down over Leviathan's bleeding arm.

"That is how it works," Leviathan agreed. "Go on, if you will. Don't waste it."

What the hell. It couldn't be any weirder than blowing on the sails to make a ship sail faster. He put his mouth to the wound and drank. Copper penny taste. How did vampires stand it?

The world turned itself inside out, and Xander felt huge hands seize his arms. "This is what Amyana looked like when we met. If you don't like it, I'll never ask you to do this again. I just thought you should have the opportunity. Viewscreen, mirror mode."

His first thought was that his hair wasn't any different. A bit wavier, he realized after a sec. The same color, no longer...just styled a little differently. His face was a little darker, but not so much he could be sure it wasn't the sun. A long, thin scar ran down his left forehead. Then he started to notice facial structure. Higher cheekbones, narrower chin...he took all that in in a second or two.

And then.... "Holy shit! I have boobs!" To his surprise, Leviathan sighed. "What? This isn't so bad."

"Generally someone who gives it that reaction isn't going to enjoy the shape so much in a few hours. Too much focus on how different and alien it is. Don't get me wrong, Danica reacted that way too not long after she Exalted and she made a gorgeous lesbian. She wasn't exactly the rule, though." Leviathan rubbed his forehead. "Come on, let's get your suit on and get inside. Those armors are more universal inside than out. You've got about an hour to see how you like the body."

Xander started to don the breastplate and paused. "...lesbian?"

Leviathan threw up his hands. "Solars!"

*****

"Before enlightenment," Fred said, "chopping wood and hauling water. After enlightenment, chopping wood and hauling water." If she stayed busy, she didn't have to think so much about what she was giving up.

The Sage chuckled. "True enough. Some of that will change as you grow more powerful. But as long as you are queen--as long as you are human--some things remain fundamentally the same. Tomorrow we will practice countermagic. Today...well, you have been through some shocks in the last few days, and doing little besides training. Normality--to the extent you can attain it--will be good for you."

Fred leaned back in the throne of Luthe. "Yeah. Send in Tomazri. We have things to discuss."

The Sage raised an eyebrow. "Let me see," was all he said. "Have Towers of Azure bring up the prayer records while you wait."

"Prayer records?"

"Yes, my queen," the AI said without letting her finish. Hologlyphic images rose before her eyes: worshippers. Hers.

"O Queen, watch over us, protect us, and care for us."

"Please let the hydroponic farms be repaired soon."

"Dreamer, take care of thyself so that thou canst take care of us."

"Mercy, oh queen, mercy. My husband is a good man." The image was of a shark-woman. Regrettably, Fred had had to dismiss far more of the Shadow Swimmers from their posts in positions of authority than anyone else. "We meant no harm."

"Can you be tired? Are not the Exalted gods among us? If you can tire, Dreamer, then rest."

Fred waved the images away. It was a heady thing hearing people pray to her, not to mention she'd grown up Baptist. Only-- "Towers, are you trying to send me a message?"

"The Sage of the Depths believes you are working yourself too hard even for an Exalt, my Queen. He says you still have most of your human limitations."

Fred took a deep breath. Sleep was more refreshing lately, but she did feel tired. "I'll just have to surpass them, then. I've got a ton to do." Hearing critical petitions, rearranging a society, training in multiple fields at once....

"There is only so much you can learn at a time," the Sage warned, coming back into the room without Tomazri. "And one of those you must learn first: delegate. Work through proxies. You cannot do it all at once. Fred...go eat, at the very least."

Fred put her head down for a moment before sitting up again. "I guess you're right. Man does not live by prayer alone "

*****

"All right, I suppose you know how to meditate after all," Leviathan murmured. "I admit I thought I'd have to explain. And then we'd be down here all night while you tried to concentrate in armor."

"I have to say it's not my forte," Xander admitted. "But trying to be Mr. Non-Occult Guy doesn't work so well atop a hellmouth. Besides, it helped me keep from blowing my stack at Dad after I learned to fight." Anyway, the grotto's flowing, sinuous curves were actually pretty soothing.

"Body give you any trouble the first hour or so?" Leviathan looked totally incapable of sitting on the floor with legs crossed, but somehow he'd folded himself into a perfect lotus position.

Xander shrugged. "A little distracting. It wasn't a good time to explore."

"What I meant about Solars earlier...your powers change your body the least. Dragon-Blooded have their affinity with the elements, Sidereals these days can look like whatever they want without half-trying, even these damned Deathknights generally end up sculpted from bone and rotten flesh. Solars tend toward the image of human perfection, and that's generally where it ends." He rose casually to his feet, avoiding the low ceiling. "I mean, I heard strange things about K'tula, but she was just one person. Anyway, if an Exalt has body image issues at all, ten to one they're Solar."

"Really?" Xander thought he ought to be stiff after sitting so long, but his joints were just fine. "I guess Lunars aren't ever bothered by that sort of thing?"

"Not commonly. Rare enough that we all did a double-take when Lilith finally told us how much she hated being male. Long story there. Anyway, it happens. Take off the helmet."

"Huh?" And drown? Oh, wait. That was the point of this exercise, wasn't it? Xander undid the catches and breached the seal.. Water began to pour in under pressure before he could even get his head out. A deep breath filled his lungs with it. He ought to be choking, coughing, desperately trying to get the cold heavy stuff out of him. Instead, he breathed out. Easy as pie.

"Looks like you got it. The pressure didn't crush your skull like an egg."

Xander laughed weakly. "Lucky me."

*****

Fred turned on the heating element and closed the door. "You don't understand, do you, Renjin?"

"Sorcery doesn't interest me, but I understand why you'd want to go back to a family that actually cares about you." He frowned at the oven. "Lucky you. I ran away from home myself."

"Care to talk about it?" She adjusted the makeshift skillet.

"No." Renjin poured himself a cup of water. "Sometimes, it's yourself that needs protecting. That's all I'm saying on the subject."

Fred just nodded and scraped up the roasting fish with a spatula. "I know something about that too. It's your own business."

"You know, some people think you're strange for liking this...city." Renjin prodded experimentally at some of the kitchen equipment. "I see you can handle yourself, but...."

Fred opened the oven, nodded once, and slid out the flat circle of bread. "Spend a few years living in the woods, and you'll learn to survive there. Doesn't mean you don't miss the comfort." She raked the fish onto her tortilla, folded it up, and took a taste. "Not bad. Needs spices. What, no fish taco jokes?"

Renjin produced only a confused frown. "I'm sorry?"

"Never mind. Cultural thing." She tore into the food. "Yay for my first successful home-cooked taco. Guess I really am a wizard now. The point is, being a Lunar is what you make of it, right? This is what I make of it. What good is change if you only ever make the same things?"

"Don't let the Wardens hear you say it, but it sounds valid to me. May I?" Fred let him take a bite. "You're just more...civilized than I'm used to. Huh. You're right. It's a little bland. Not bad though. I suppose Leviathan, the Sage, and Swims-in-Shadow made this place before you were ever here."

Fred made as if to spit out her taco. "Maybe Leviathan's not beyond hope, and the Sage helped me. But they made a city where almost nobody really knows how things work. That's not what I want Luthe to look like. That's not protecting people, it's putting them in danger. Leviathan made his own little copy of the First Age here, where instead of a few hundred Celestials who understood the city, it was just him and his couple of flunkies. And that was his contribution to the River?"

"When you put it that way," Renjin said.

"I want the people of Luthe to understand as much as they can about the world and their city. Then even if the Realm rolls over me personally, my people won't lose much." She waved her arms a little. Well, maybe a lot. "There are things I only understand because I'm Exalted, and maybe we should do without those. But most of Luthe isn't that different from where I grew up, and we didn't have Exalted there at all. People can have that and not lose it if something happens to us."

Renjin smiled. "You do want to protect your people. I like that. It'll be good to see what you can do."

What could she say to that? "Thanks. Another taco?"

"Sounds good to me. Say, you've never said a thing about Swims-in-Shadow."

"Nothing to say. He was gone when I got here. Didn't turn up for the Gathering. I guess he has his own fish to fry."

Renjin choked on his first bite of taco.

*****

"I must say I'm looking forward to this." The voice was cultured, the tone cool and educated. Swims-in-Shadow wasn't in much of a position to appreciate it. "In fairness, I don't know what it'll do to you. It was never designed for your sort. But perhaps we can make it function. Or at worst, I'm sure you'll die in an interesting way."

The Silver Prince smiled at him through the bars. Swims-in-Shadow gritted his teeth and tried not to scream. If this was what had happened to the Deathknights, death was the best he could hope for.

*****

"What the bleedin' 'ell is that?" The sailors were gathering on the quarterdeck, staring at something rising out of the sea in the distance. "There's nothin' on our charts."

She pushed forward for a better look. "What we're looking for, I expect. Tell the men to prepare." Cynis Megara smiled.

It was so much better than she'd imagined.


	22. Enough to Make My Systems Blow

It was all an act. Come to think of it, that was a good metaphor for her life these days.

She danced and she gyrated and she chanted and she sang. She'd even tried her hand at writing a song, halfway expecting it to be a wash. Something about the new age coming and being filled with so much power she wanted to just explode, which was really truly how she felt. Only she was doing her damnedest to hold it in. Sometimes when she slept, hoping for the dreams to tell her something useful, she woke up shimmering with green fire. Buffy had meant to go out with a bang. Now it was starting to look as if she'd end the world with one.

Aphrodisia came down and Buffy flipped her into the air again. This was all based on cheerleading, but she'd taken the routine beyond what any human--any _normal_ human; had to remember that part--could aspire to. She was literally juggling her entourage. They weren't being passive about it, of course; she'd gotten some marottes to rig up trapezes on the ceiling, so that they could swing around and do flips in midair. Larimar hurtled down at an angle, and Buffy caught her hands, spun her around, and flung her up to be caught by Marzi.

At least three dozen Third-Circle demons were in the audience, and every one of them but Ligier was applauding, a raucous echo of sound and essence that thrummed inside her skull. Some of Ligier's souls were whooping it up, too, especially a bronzy-skinned fellow in a suit, but the rest and Ligier were sitting there, hands folded, looking cranky and stuffily royal. Apparently that was just how he was.

"--checking out on the prison bus. This is it, the apocalypse, whoa-oa--" She knew this was just the beginning of the night, the least important part, but it all fit into her plans. She was getting better at strategizing and scheming. You couldn't hope to avoid that when you were aiming to betray a half-dozen superdemons who were counting on you to break them out of hell. "--I'm radioactive, radioactive!"

The angyalkae looked startled when she came swooping down and added them to the acrobatics. They spun through the air, fingers screaming notes that should have been dissonant but fit perfectly with the music and the act as a whole. She hadn't told them they were part of her plans for anythimg but the music. She didn't try the same with the gilmyne, though it might have been spectacular. She wasn't sure they were solid enough.

By the time she was done, several of the Unquestionable-- _that was Erembour! damn it please don't look at me_ \--were dancing and cheering with her in the aisles--which was probably the best endorsement she could hope for short of the Brass Dancer himself dropping by. Which would carry its own set of problems, of course. Just meeting Erembour the first time had left her weak in the knees.

The audience roared at the top of their lungs, and if this hadn't been the third encore she was sure they'd have demanded another. She'd arranged it to avoid getting winded, but jesus was she tired! Instead she made for the seats and started shaking hands. With demon lords. With the freaking Unquestionable. Damn, but she needed a drink. Which would only lead to more badness and she wasn't going to do it. No getting drunk around these...guys...these things! It would only worsen her wiggins.

"My apologies," Ligier said. Ligier! Apologizing! Not very sincerely, but even him using the expression was shocking. Ligier did not apologize; he demanded that you apologize and appreciate being allowed to. "I did not come to put a wet blanket on the performance. My Indulgent Soul begged it of me. I do not let him out much. I acknowledge your vast technical skill."

Buffy bowed deeply, seething. And trying not to grin. He did not need to see her do that. Cyan had finally explained some things to her. "This is your Indulgent Soul?" She glanced at the fellow who'd begun dancing first. He had flair, she admitted to herself. "I know you're not big on letting him go all footloose, but I have a big job I could use his help with."

Ligier frowned. "We have much to discuss tonight about your next assignment. Are you certain you want _him_?"

"I'm pretty sure I have some good guesses about what you want next. He'll come in handy if any of them are right." And even if they were all wrong, but not for the reasons the demon lords thought. She hoped.

"Very well. You will be dining with my guests and I tonight, Buffy Summers. We will speak further in a short while." Perfect so far. He extended an arm. "Attend me."

Sure, he was a demon. She didn't feel any less excited for that. He was literally the most enthralling thing in miles.

And after all, she had a plan.

**Chapter 22--Enough to Make My Systems Blow**

She was at the kind of table Bruce Wayne used for parties in the movies, when he had parties at all. More than that, she was seated on Ligier's left, just below the head of the table. She knew it was an empty gesture, meant to make her feel honored without giving her anything substantial.

Buffy didn't care. She knew what he was up to. She knew what she was up to too. They just happened to coincide for a little while. And in spite of herself, in spite of knowing just how little it meant, she did feel honored.

A demure-looking demoness opened a small bottle and handed it to Ligier. "We are gathered here tonight," he intoned, "to celebrate the accomplishments of Buffy Summers. I admit her nearly bloodless takeover of Gem was not as most of us would have done. Nonetheless it was effective and highly efficient. She has turned its populace to the labor of manufacturing the tools and weapons we will need to invade Creation, and her religious-freedom edicts combined with her beneficence have magnified the worship of the Yozis there by _four thousand percent_!" That wasn't as impressive a figure as it sounded like; Yozi worship wasn't too common most places. But if there'd been only one Yozi woeshipper in Gem before there would be forty now. There had been far more than that. Buffy felt queasy. But it had had to be done. Some of them worshipped her too. She could feel it.

"Buffy's exemplary performance has earned her complete immunity from the suspicion recently fallen on Kimbery's Chosen." She knew better than that--but it was close to the truth, anyway. "The Yozis are still trying to determine what happened, but this Slayer soldiers on in spite of her troubling Urge. In her honor, I offer her the best drink we can produce. To Buffy Summers!" With a grand gesture, he emptied the bottle into Buffy's cup. Everyone else at the table stared enviously at the drink, which sloshed of its own accord and sang with a whispery, throbbing song. "And to Tirapheth," he added sardonically, "Wisdom Soul of Madelrada. Drink!"

Everyone raised their glasses, which contained drinks that resembled hers but from the look of it were beer compared to her champagne. She took a deep breath. "Bottoms up!" Buffy downed the stuff in one gulp. Visions hurtled through her skull--bloody battles, bizarre court intrigues, kinky sexual escapades. Or maybe those were kinky battles and bloody sexual escapades. The swirling images receded, leaving her feeling as if she'd taken about five shots of whiskey before coming here, or maybe twenty after. She swayed in her seat.

"Buffy Summers, I regret that I must tell you the assault on Gethamane has failed. We have not yet determined what destroyed the weapon Vermeth planted in the tunnels, in part because his Exaltation has also returned to us. An attempt on Halta is scheduled in three days, but Mnemon seems to be using powerful magicks to speed her army on. If nothing diverts her, she will reach Gem within the month." Ligier muttered something under his breath before continuing, and in spite of herself Buffy breathed a sigh of relief that she sasn't the one upsetting him. "Gem is currently our only beachhead. You must hold at all costs. We will divert any resources you require to that end."

Buffy hoped her eyes were suitably wide. Mnemon was bad news. This was better than she could have hoped for. "I've got battle plans all drawn up. You'll have my requisitions in the morning." She wouldn't sleep tonight. Not because she hadn't already finished her shopping list, but because she couldn't see the future here, for whatever reason.

"With respect," Cearr growled disrespectfully from a few seats down, "I saw those plans. You're preparing for a siege. You can't hold Gem in a siege. You'll starve out in days no matter how defensible the walls are."

"Oh no," Buffy snarked, "Mnemon will have me pinned in the city like a bird in a cage. Whatever shall I do?" She dropped the sarcasm. Mostly. "You're going to have to trust that I know what I'm doing, Cearr. I don't do orthodox. Ligier...um, my lord...with respect, this is perfect for the request I made of you earlier."

Ligier raised an eyebrow but, thankfully, failed to comment on her tone. "You must be certain. His power travels along lines of emotion. Normally that confines it to a single town, but you have relationships across Creation. You're sure he won't put our other plans at risk?"

"Guaranteed." Ligier nodded. Damn, she was getting good at lying if she had the tiniest chance of fooling him!

"And you're ready to pay the other price?"

"Ready and eager." No need to lie there. Mislead, but not lie. She was glad he didn't affect her the way he affected most people. Must be an Exalted thing. She didn't want to upset him.

"Very well. I have an amulet that can summon him." Ligier made the sourest face she'd ever seen a demon make. "Sweet will be glad of the excursion. Just don't let on he's one of mine."

"You've got a deal."

*****

"I thought you were gone." Here she was in her bedchamber, not sleepy but definitely tired, so of course Angel would turn up now.

"I decided it wasn't a good idea to leave you here alone." He looked a little off. Probably he wasn't eating well. When did he ever? "Maybe I can stop you from making the same mistakes over and over again."

Buffy shrugged casually. "Could be." 

_**Make him squeal! Isn't he delightful?**_ God, not this again.

_If we do anything together he'll lose his soul. Then nothing I do will hurt him._

Angel, oblivious to the fight going on inside her, just shrugged back. "I know you, Buffy. You're the strongest person I've ever met. You don't want to serve the Old Ones, so why are you doing this?"

"Do you want to stay here for the rest of your immortal life, Angel?" She strolled over to the bed and sat down. "I want to go home and leave the Yozis scratching their head-analogues and wondering where their prophecy went. But to do that I have to figure out how to get back. You said Fred and Dawn both failed at opening a portal after you found me."

"I don't know if it's like in Pylea," he explained. "It could be something else entirely. Fred worked out the proper mystical phrases, but they didn't do anything that we could see."

 _ **Come on to him. Make him worry. Tempt him. Do something!**_ The thing in her head was growing more vocal. This seemed like a bad episode starting.

"It might only work in the Wyld," she suggested. "Cyan and I were tossing ideas around becore you showed up."

"You didn't show up there."

"None of you guys showed up in Pylea where you could make portals home either. But there has to be somewhere. In the meantime I don't have any choices but play along or get eaten."

Angel sagged down onto the bed next to her. "Buffy, at some point you have to face up to the possibility that none of us are going home."

"And then what? Throw myself into some suicidal charge at the bad guys? Settle down and just do what they want?" She got up on her knees so she could look him in the eyes. "It took the entire Exalted host to beat these guys the first time around, because they're all working together. There's no monster of the week here. They squabble and they complain, but they're clear on one thing: they all want out. Somehow, I have to get the band back together. Even if Paul is dead and everyone's still fighting over Yoko Ono."

"Actually, the dead guy was Ringo. Don't ask who thought it was a good idea to turn him." Buffy attempted a death glare. "No joke. It doesn't matter. What makes you think you have a chance at that? Buffy, you're the bad guy here. No one's going to listen to you."

_**Liar! Hurt him for it!** _

"Stop it! Stop it! Just shut up already!" Angel stared at her. "Sorry. Not you. The demon in my head." He opened his mouth. "It's always been there, Angel. It's the reason the Slayer is what she is. It's why the First Slayer was crazy. I'm starting to think I'm going crazy. I _have to get home_ , Angel."

_**Not bad. Try that more.** _

"I don't understand, Buffy. You're going to have to explain." Angel looked strange huddling up into a ball.

"I don't know how it started exactly. But Infernals, Slayers included, have a demon inside them. It's like a nice slimy gift wrap for the Exaltation." She tried to open up her posture a little. He did deserve an explanation. "I don't know if we were all the original Watchers could get, or if it was their twisted sense of humor, but I think...I...Angel, it was a _vendetta_. Or it turned into one a long time ago. There are a lot of evil demons. But the idea that they're all evil? It was made up by a bunch of tribal elders or something for the same reason it always is: so that I don't stop. So that I don't negotiate. So that I kill them all."

Angel looked her in the eye. "So that you can't be bargained with? Can't be reasoned with?"

Buffy managed a weak smile. "Something like that. Only I'm stuck. Is this new and improved self-understanding just my skeezy demon part, or old selfish valley me, looking for a new reason to cop out? Or am I really the tool of genocidal assholes from the town of Bedrock? I don't even know who or what I am any more. I still want to be a hero, but how?"

"I know the feeling. You can't give up, Buffy." Angel's fingers slipped into her hair. "You can be a hero. Even with a demon inside you."

"That's the part you aren't getting, Angel. I'm trying. But that means...it means no more crush, kill, destroy. Not even to demons. And it means that if I can kill the bad guys...." The breath felt like the deepest she'd ever taken. "...then I've got to be willing to kill bad _people_. Demon or human. And I don't know that I can trust myself to do that."

"You killed the Despot." Not a judgment. Just a statement.

"Yeah. It shook me up. And then I remembered how I felt when my first vampire turned to dust underneath me. It felt the same, Angel. It felt the same." Buffy put a hand to each temple. "Right now the demon in my head is telling me I shouldn't...feel pity or remorse or fear. Just slay, and make it hurt as much as I can on the way to that. You too. And Spike. The girls too."

"Even its own kind?"

"Don't be stupid, Angel. I know you were killing your own kind long before you had a soul. No different from the rest of us, I guess." She tried to sit up straighter. "I guess in a way coming here did me a favor. Just not the comfy kind."

Angel slumped in response. "You know, I hadn't been in LA a year before I killed some woman's champion. A Prio Motu demon. I just jumped in and tore him to pieces. Because, you know, they're all violent, evil...um...irredeemable monsters. You know the type."

"Yeah. I know the type. Somebody ensoul him?"

"Just Buddhist, I think. Stabbed first. Didn't get to ask questions later."

_**The hell with it. Go on. Be nice.** _

Buffy sat bolt upright. "Well, that can't be good. He shut up and left."

"He can do that?"

"I'm sure he's not really gone." She glanced around the room as if she might find him hiding in a corner. "He's my handler, after all. For lack of a better. And I doubt it'll let me get away with an attitude adjustment for long. I've got a plan started to deal with that, but...only just. Not really ready for this conversation."

"Sorry."

Buffy sagged. "Don't be. It's been six thousand years coming."

*****

"Morning, sleepyheads." Buffy waved as Spike and Angel entered the dining room. "I've already had a conversation with the nobles about some new arrangements."

Spike swung around into a seat. "Go well? Not at my best before sundown."

"If not killing them is going well, sure." She lifted the lid. "Roast boar. Yum."

"Hope they saved us some blood." Spike looked around at the various trays.

"On special order," Buffy said. "Give it a minute."

"Feeling any better?" Angel peered under a lid.

"Not really. Thanks for asking." A pair of waiters strolled in carrying goblets. Spike sniffed and half-stood. "Manners, Spike. Nobody eats before the Despot, remember?"

"I remember. Good way to start a revolution, Slayer." The black-haired waiter deposited a goblet in front of him. "High-quality stuff for animal blood. Not sure what's in it though."

The brown-haired waiter went to Angel, of course. "Here you are, sir." Waitress, actually. Why did she have on such a tight, binding shirt? She handed Angel his goblet and left with the other.

Buffy began to carve up her roast, which had come complete with apple. "At least I've got time to think all this stuff through while I wait for Mnemon to show up."

"What stuff, Slayer?"

Angel glanced at her briefly. "Moral crisis. Something you wouldn't understand."

"Angel," Buffy said warningly. "Let's try and not resemble that remark."

Angel took a big swallow from his goblet. "I didn't mean demons in general. Just Spike." Spike rolled his eyes.

"He's making progress," Buffy began, "and as far as stalking, you...." Angel's hands were shaking. Only slightly at first, but the tremor rapidly grew violent. "Spike? Damn it!" Spike was having a seizure of his own. Both vampires collapsed face down on the table.

Buffy almost dropped her fork onto the table, then thought better of it. "I know you're there. I've fought invisible people bef--" A blade slid into her back, complete with blinding pain.

"Then you should know better than to waste time talking to them." The blade slipped out again with a trickle of blood.

"And you should know," Buffy said, twisting around, "that just because you put a knife in my back doesn't mean I'm _hurt_." Her foot flew up and connected with something. A head maybe. She swung on around, brought up the other leg, kicked again in the same spot. Some kind of armor, though.

Tarnish began spreading across her body just as one of the waiters reappeared from the kitchen, a pair of shortswords in his hand, each flickering with deathly green flame. Lure them away from the vampires? No, they might just kill them before coming after her. But she needed the Scythe. She couldn't afford to hold back. They were probably good guys. Hopefully they had the sense not to fight to the death.

That was assuming she could beat them. Buffy charged at the newcomer and, at the last moment, dodged up onto the wall. Her open palm slammed into his nose, snapping his head back. She continued on through the door he'd come through. Her weapon was a few twists away through the hall. She'd be--

A low vibration made her brace herself just before a godawful bonewrenching shriek tore into the hall, shattering dishes and twisting cutlery. Just the sheer energy of it ripped molten sparks from her just-formed second skin. That second waiter wasn't playing around. Buffy kicked her in passing, hoping to goad her into following.

Up some stairs and to the right. Left again. Three invisible blows hurtled at her and spanged from her armor. Scythe. She had it.

Words came from nowhere in a language Buffy didn't recognize at all. Damn it, she'd gotten used to everyone using Riverspeak or Low Realm. Whatever had given her those seemed to have swapped them for English and given up. Butch lady waiter shouted back in the same gibberish.

Well, that put her at a disadvantage. Hopefully they'd understand her puns. Creepy pale waiter came charging up the stairs, blades raised, and slashed at her. The Scythe's haft blocked both cuts.

Now that was unmistakably a curse. Invisible guy flickered in and out as he spun in the air above her, blades slicing down in a flurry of attacks that she had to let her armor block. A red symbol flared through his mask.

"Of course. In a suit like that, how will anyone know you're a guy unless you advertise?" Where were her bodyguards? Already taken out? Falling into a rhythm with butch diva, she backed her way out of the room toward the dining hall. Angel and Spike were still just out cold.

This wasn't working. She seemed to be wearing them down slowly, but slowly was the key word. She was striking glancing blows or none at all. On the other hand, they hadn't done her much harm either and already seemed to be burning through their energy. The butch lady, amusingly, had the "woman" symbol shining on her forehead. Running through her mental list, Buffy concluded that these must be Sidereals. They couldn't be anything else. They had probably expected the invisible one to hurt her a lot more, or maybe the pig she hadn't gotten a bite of was poisoned too. They were at least matching her acrobatic leaps fairly well. She somersaulted over the table to evade pale and creepy and nearly collided with invisible boy. He was still awfully hard to keep track of. Buffy slammed him in the face with the Scythe's shaft, knocking him down.

She needed to do more than hold them off. What she needed was to intimidate them, to scare them away until she had more defenses in place. Of course, they would come back in greater force later, but she would be ready for them. Buffy took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

The big lady charged for her at once, of course. Buffy let her pound that silvery mace down on her shoulders. She barely noticed the blow. Buffy was swelling up with muscle, hunched over but still a head taller than normal. Bulky and musclebound and not how she liked to look at all. She tossed the Scythe upward to lodge point-first in the ceiling and brought both of her immense fists down on the woman's head. Her own symbol was finally, belatedly starting to burn. "You have any idea how much it annoys me, looking like a gorilla on steroids?"

The creepy guy had a funny purple h on his forehead now. So the gang was all powered up. She seized him by the neck and slammed him face-first into invisible guy.

The diva opened her mouth and released another horrific opera screech in Buffy's direction. This one didn't carry quite the force of the last, but it was enough that Buffy steeled herself and let the sparks fly. The others had time to get up while Buffy was letting it wash over her.

Green fire flared around Buffy, and this time something new responded. A part of her tried to wrestle it down--did she really want this as part of her?--but with a sigh, she let it happen. She couldn't afford to keep holding back like this.

Her nails lengthened from their freshly-manicured state. An inch, two inches, four, gaining just enough curve to keep them from snapping off at once. Blond ringlets curled past her cheeks, spreading, spraying out in all directions, till it should have been tangled around her feet. Instead it moved at her direction, reaching out ten yards or more, seizing the pallid vampire wanna-be and crashing him against the wall. Ok, why had she even fought this? This was actually the coolest power to show up in months!

Invisible boy was trying to slip up behind her. She fanned her hair out in every direction until there was nowhere he ciuld approach from and not tangle himself. Finally she reached out and seized the big lady by the waist, bringing her in close. Buffy put her nails to the woman's throat and let them cut deep, spraying blood. She wouldn't be that easy to kill.

Sure enough the flow halted at once. The woman coughed and spat in Buffy's face. And for the first time she spoke in a language Buffy understood. "You can't kill me," she rasped, "not without killing Anya."

Buffy stumbled and dropped her. "What? Where are you keeping her?"

"Not keeping her anywhere. She's one of us now. She'd be sick if she saw what you've become." The first bits were true. The last part, Buffy didn't need to be told was a lie.

"Either you don't know Anya that well, or you're dumb enough to think you can fool me." Anya might be one of the good guys now, but there was a hard core to her, even a cruelty, that Buffy couldn't match and didn't want to. "Anya would egg me on, if she didn't know it would hurt her."

The woman groaned. "Well, I guess she really does know you. Except you've fooled her into thinking you're one of the good guys."

"I _am_ one of the good guys. So are you. In theory. I don't expect you to believe me, but if you'll stand down I'll try to prove it to you."

"Not a chance in hell."

"Funny," Buffy said, shaking her head. "Not long ago I'd have said the same thing. How much longer do we dance the dance, then?"

"Till you're dead, I guess." Buffy spotted a flicker in her eyes as she glanced to one side. Goth-boy made some sort of gesture at Buffy, then frowned and shook his head. "Damn. You really are outside fate. That complicates matters."

"Does it? Always liked to think I was destiny-free. I didn't realize it was literal." Sulumor had mentioned it once, but Buufy hadn't realized that being "outside fate" actually did anything. "You realize you're not going to kill me, right?"

"Knew we should've brought May Blossom," Invisible Boy muttered.

"So again, do we keep fighting and make me kill you all? Or can we sit down and talk this out like civilized people?" 

"The Cult of the Illuminated has an Abyssal in it," Invisible said after a few moments.

"Waters the Fields with Blood?" Goth asked.

Butch grumbled, "Good example of what's the matter with Gold Stars," but then said something else in that other language. There was a round of rapid-fire discussion Buffy couldn't follow. "I guess in principle nothing stops us from talking to you," she said at last. "Let us down and we'll chitchat all you want."

*****

"Can't believe she doesn't even know Flametongue," Iron Siaka muttered. "How does she expect to rule these people?" The roast chicken made her stomach rumble, but the others insisted they had to wait for Buffy.

"This is Gem," Crimson pointed out. "How many people here don't speak at least a little Rivertongue?"

"Fair enough," Siaka said. "At least it's gonna bite her in the ass."

"Anya believes her to be trustworthy," Shadow said lightly from across the table. "I know how it is to be thought ill of for the wrong reasons."

"Just let us know if you get a bad vibe off the food," Siaka growled. "This isn't about you."

"Rationally," Crimson asked, "can we trust Deathknights yet assume that Buffy is a loyal servant of the Yozis?"

"No," Siaka said, "because we _can't_ trust Deathknights. That's Gold Faction's worst mistake yet." 

"The Yozis may not be cowed," Shadow argued, "but they are sworn and imprisoned. The Neverborn are merely dead."

Budfy strode back into the dining room flanked by her undead demons and followed by the pair of rogue Dragon-Bloods she'd bought off Rankar. "Sorry for the delay," she said, "but I had to make sure my bodyguard weren't drugged again."

"Sorry," Shadow said calmly. "Had to be done." They were all slowly recovering their Essence, but then so was Buffy. They had to not make the same mistakes again. Or new ones, with the Terrestrials and demons awake and free.

Buffy's hair billowed around her as she sat down. She'd kept it at this absurd length. At least, Iron Siaka admitted to herself, it wouldn't drag in things or get in your face if you could control it like tentacles. Trouble was, Siaka had never seen a mutation effect like this one, except among Lunars and raksha. There was no telling what it might do.

"Anya probably told you I spent five years on the hellmouth in my town keeping it closed," Buffy said. "Killing demons on a nightly basis and preventing an apocalypse maybe once every three months on average."

"How do you define 'apocalypse'?" Shadow asked. She supposed it was a reasonable question.

"If it kills everyone, destroys civilization, or lets demons rule the world, I call that an apocalypse. I guess it doesn't count if it just starts World War D." Buffy still had her superlong nails too; she seemed to be spearing vegetables with them, a curious expression on her face. Maybe this was new to her too.

"Why would the Yozis empower you to do that?" Crimson asked.

"I don't think they meant to," Buffy said patiently. "There's some kind of infighting going on because Kimbery wasn't supposed to make me the way she did."

"Hmm." Siaka was startled to realize she'd eaten some chicken. Well, it didn't seem to be poisoned. "But you're taking orders from them now."

"Human history doesn't really remember the Old Ones," the big demon said. "Even when demons are trying to free them, they're not aware enough of this world to give orders."

"Where I came from," Buffy explained further, "I wasn't even on the Old Ones' radar except if I was stopping them right then. Most demons just knew I was the one who kicked their asses every Tuesday. Only I arrived here with some kind of prophecy and now they're all watching and waiting. If I fought them directly, by myself, I wouldn't last a night."

"True enough," Crimson acknowledged. "But why take over Gem?"

"Because I need some kind of power base here to be taken seriously," Buffy said, tasting a bit of vegetable. "It's a whole new ballgame from what I'm used to."

"And because the old Despot was a right wanker who deserved to have his arse beaten," the shorter demon said. "Buffy's worth a hundred of him."

"Rankar was a known quantity," Siaka said. "He was disgusting, sure. But he wasn't a servant of hell."

"After getting a good look at your world," Buffy argued, "I'm starting to think hell is as hell does."

Siaka nodded. "Which is why you've gone over to the Yozis."

"I haven't--" Buffy gritted her teeth. "I'm undercover. I don't know how I'm supposed to prove that."

"You can't," Siaka said, and reached inside her armor. "Either you come with us--in chains--or I set this off. It's a sun's fist chakram, and it'll blow you and your friends and maybe a couple of us to hell where you belong." Crimson and Shadow stared at her. Maybe Oversight hadn't told them about this part of the mission.

With a snarl, Buffy flung herself over the table. Iron Siaka threw the disc at her, and the world went up in flame.

*****

Buffy came down hard on the table on top of the grenade--that was what it was, fancy name or not--and felt it burst to life beneath her. A bloom of fire erupted under her belly, scattering sparks and bits of brass in every direction. The table crashed to the floor, burning, but the blast was contained.

The fire didn't go out, though. It turned green and billowed around her like a gamma-ray nuclear explosion straight out of Marvel Comics. Buffy's superlong hair seared away.

And she began to grow.

"Damn it!" The seams of her designer clothes gave way in moments, ripping her fancy dress to shreds. Seconds later she felt her shoulders strike the high ceiling of the dining hall, about ten feet up, and force her into a crouch. "You just couldn't resist, I guess, is that it?"

If she'd been at home, Buffy guessed she would have stood up. The ceiling would have been wrecked, but she would've been free. Unforunately, at the moment she had at least six stone ceilings above her. Even if she was strong enough to shatter her way out, there was no telling what kind of damage she'd do. She was probably something like twenty feet tall or more.

Lacking any better alternative, she reached out and closed her fist around Iron Siaka. "Okay, I get it. You're just that anxious to get me naked? Like the view?"

"Not...my...type," the Sidereal wheezed.

"Tell you what," Buffy growled. "I can't kill you, so how about I take _you_ prisoner, and I'll see if you can be taught how to negotiate in good faith. Your friends can go, if they want." She squeezed lightly.

"The...hell...you...say."

Buffy sighed. "You want to play it like that. Sure. The hell I say. Get ready for an extended visit. Hope you like my hospitality. You two, get out before I change my mind and squish her. Anya will have to take care of herself."

"Slayer!" Where was that coming from? "Slayer?"

"Spike?" There wasn't much room to turn around. "Can't really see you!"

"Pretty sure when I said you had a nice bum, I didn't mean at this range!"

"Sorry, Spike. I think you're going to have to wait till this wears off on its own. Enjoy the view, I guess."


	23. Beast In Her Belly

Election Day was approaching rapidly. Lilah Morgan's campaign was pulling out all the stops. She had just run a photoshoot for more billboards. She had a debate scheduled for tomorrow night. The Democratic Presidential candidate had a public appearance scheduled with her in one week. And Lilah herself was on her hands and knees in front of the porcelain throne, dry heaving.

"How? How is this possible? I have a superhuman physique. I barely need water, I don't produce waste of any kind--"

 _ **You sure don't,**_ Darla deadpanned, glancing at the clean toilet. They'd been dry-heaving off and on for two days now, but that was the limit of it.

"--you shut up. How can I be sick when I barely even get tired any more?"

_**Don't look at me. If I knew the first thing about modern medicine, would I have been dying of syphilis when I was turned? Ask a doctor.** _

"Won't he notice--?" Never mind. Stupid question. She just needed to go to one of the Wolfram & Hart staff doctors, who dealt with everything from vampires to sapient tapeworms on a regular basis. They wouldn't bat an eye. "I guess I've been trying too hard to distance myself from my company stock portfolio. Didn't even occur to me. I'll call Doctor Blair."

 ** _If we're canceling today's morning schedule, can I have some time with Dru please?_** Drusilla was maintained in style in a company penthouse at the moment, though she did sometimes slip out to hunt. So far her precognition had kept her from doing anything _too_ stupid.

Lilah thought that one over. "If the drugs kick in I'd be happy to. Standard campaign precautions, of course." California might be progressive, but it was still America. "Just be aware that if we get there and my stomach is still in knots there may not be much fun time."

 _ **Dru has a surprising flair for hurt/comfort play.**_ Darla grinned, somewhere inside, and Lilah snickered at the images that came to mind. **_Hey, it could be worse. You haven't been with a man in months._**

That was even funnier. "Definite advantage of vampire lovers in general: zero chance of getting knocked up."

**Chapter 23--Beast in Her Belly**

Doctor Blair examined the second set of test results. "No doubt about it. You're pregnant." She handed Lilah the printout. "Congratulations."

"Shit. Shit!" How was she supposed to run a campaign as an unwed mother? She might as well air out her relationship with Drusilla on live television! "That's not possible. There's no possible father."

"A urine sample would've been easier, but the bloodwork is unambiguous." Doctor Blair bit her index nail. "Have you been in close personal contact with any male demons? Sex isn't always required."

Lilah didn't bother answering beyond, "It doesn't matter. We're getting rid of it. Right now."

"I'll have to schedule an appoint--"

"Right. Now."

"Do I have time to sterilize the equipment?" 

Dr. Blair looked as if she might scurry off to do it with dirty tools if pressed, so Lilah hastily said, "Yes, of course." Superhuman physiology apparently wasn't all it was cracked up to be. "Off the books. I can't deal with a scandal right now."

The doctor nodded. "Naturally. Off the books it is. Standard D&C? Or shall we add a paranormal cleansing for good measure?"

"Gah. Give me the works." This could not be happening. There was literally no way. "Just get the little parasite out." _Did you by any chance...?_

**_Only with Angel, since you brought me back. You've got better odds with the doctor here. At least she's alive._ **

Right. Maybe it was a legal client. Could even be an accident with a few kinds of demon. She hadn't talen that into account.

Well, in a couple of hours it'd be done with.

*****

"We're done already?" Lilah sat up. Surely that hadn't been long enough.

"Done. I don't understand it."

That couldn't be good. "You are a doctor. I pay you to understand it. Tell me what the matter is."

"The D&C did nothing. Zero. I have no tissue results of any kind. As for the paranormal, you read as dirty as they come...sorry, no offense--"

"Standard radiation analogy, don't get fidgety on me. Just explain."

"The cleansing didn't have any effect. You still read as supernaturally pregnant with a highly-probable demon baby, and...well, we can't exorcise it, fatally or otherwise."

Lilah put her head in her hands. "How the hell am I going to work this? I can't call off the campaign, I..."

Blair raised one finger. "Clean up the streets, even gubernatorial candidates aren't safe?"

At least the idea gave Lilah the mental space to count to ten. "Still politically risky, sad to say, but I'm glad you're thinking. I believe you just saved your life."

The doctor backed out, thanking her profusely, and Lilah let her thoughts spin into overdrive. There was a way. Always.

*****

Faith flinched. She always did when it came time for this. And then she made herself hold still and let Harmony get down to business.

The vampire had been as good as her word--so far--about not hunting. She looked as harmless as they came, and acted it most of the time. In the end, though, she was still a predator.

Harmony drank her fill and let Faith go. "Thanks!"

"It's five by five. You gotta eat, and better me than street people. I heal." There was disturbing activity going on under her eyepatch, as if even that injury might be trying to repair itself.

"You're always good to eat! Slayers are delicious!" Was she really as oblivious as she seemed? Willow hadn't shown much sign either, and girly-girl Harmony had more cause to repress. Hadn't Angel said something about Slayer blood being an aphrodisiac back in the day?

Faith went for an unconcerned, "Thanks," and got up to get some grub. Buffybot and Kate were up to their elbows in raw meat and flour.

"Sorry," B-bot blurted out. "The pasta isn't working like the recipe says."

"She's got no experience cooking," Kate explained. "I tried to tell her you can't just scale things up."

"How long?" Faith just needed to eat something. She'd get woozy trying to feed Harm on an empty stomach.

Kate tilted her head toward the timer. "Looking at a couple more hours."

"Mind if I go out? I'll go patrol too." Random demonic activity was on the downswing, but that just meant whatever she ran into was important.

"Suit yourself. Spaghetti when you get back."

"I'm a big eater." Did she sound to Kate the way Harm sounded to her? She was halfway out the door when Harmony popped out of a side room. "You coming along?"

"I gotta earn my keep, right?"

Faith gave her a half-smile. Harm really did seem to be trying, but where Angel tried to be good for redemption's sake, Harmony saw good deeds as a way of buying time. No more, no less. Not only was it a reminder that she was no different inside from any other vampire, it was depressing as hell.

"We're running by Mickey D's first. You eat much human food?" Vampires ranged from "finds regular food bland" to "horrible cramps and vomiting", but the former seemed more common. Blended better, probably. Faith wasn't sure where the food went and didn't want to know.

"Got McRibs? I like the sauce."

"I dunno. It's a little early in the year still." Maybe a little test? "I didn't think you seemed like a pork type of girl."

Harmony tilted her head to one side. "Um. Humans usually overcook meat. No blood left in it." Well, that was useless.

Faith put on her helmet; she hated the things but getting arrested wouldn't help at all. "Hop on." Harm climbed on and clung to her waist, but it didn't feel like a snuggly grip. The vampire just seemed terrified. "You need a helmet. It'll keep you safe." More so than Faith, really. All she really needed to protect was her head. She grabbed a helmet off B-bot's bike. "Wanna learn how to ride?"

Harmony gulped. "Maybe sometime?"

"Show you on the way home. No takebacks." Faith revved the engine and took off before Harm could change her mind.

*****

"McRibs!" Harmony shrieked. "Woohoo!"

"Anyone ever tell you you make a strange and disturbing vampire?"

Harmony just laughed. "Only other vamps. You should see them when I sing 'Steal My Sunshine'."

Good thing they were parked, cause Faith nearly fell off the cycle laughing. "And I thought that was a weird thing for humans to like!"

"You know, I think you get me better than most people," Harm said as they made their way in. There was a television with a basketball game playing, but Faith couldn't make out which teams.

"How's that go? Because we both go hunt at night?" There was something to that, maybe, but she and Harmony dodn't have much else in common.

"Well, yeah, but...Kate talks to me like I'm a human with these urges that aren't really part of me. Maybe Angel's like that. I dunno. She's all like, 'you can resist that, you can behave yourself'. And I can...sorta."

As usual, no one in line was paying attention to the conversation. Faith nodded. "I know you can, or you'd be dust."

"Yeah but that's not it. She has my parts mixed up, like most people. Like maybe for humans the smart part, the part that talks and thinks, maybe that's you. And the rest of you, the hungry part and the angry part and--"

"'The horny part?"

"--that too, they're like voices in the back of your head? Like, not really part of you? Two McRibs and a coke please. Well, that's backwards for me, ok?"

Faith thought that over. "The thinking part is just a voice in the animal's head? Big Mac Meal with root beer."

"Yeah, kind of. It's in there, sure, but...the scary hungry animal...that part is me. Am I making any sense?"

Faith shrugged and handed over the money. "Eh. I'm not sure we're really that different. Maybe we're all fooling ourselves about which part we are."

Faith had almost gotten to the table with the tray when the game suddenly cut out. "We're live with a special announcement from San Francisco, where Democratic candidates Al Gore and Joe Lieberman were about to speak in favor of gubernatorial candidate Lilah Morgan, currently the front runner. Roy, what just happened here?"

"Tracy, your guess is as good as mine about the reasons, but our footage shows that Joe Lieberman suddenly, and completely without warning, physically assaulted Ms. Morgan, shouting that _she_ was attacking him."

"Is there any evidence that she did so?"

"Not a shred, Tracy."

Faith stared at the screen as it replayed the critical moments. Sure enough, the _fucking Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate_ lunged at Lilah for no apparent reason, leaving baffled Secret Service agents swinging their guns back and forth. Finally one of them yelled at Lieberman to stand down, and he did, his face plastered with a look of stunned confusion.

"What just happened, Roy?"

"I don't have a clue, but we're about to get a statement from Lieberman himself on the matter."

Disheveled, sweating, plainly totally confused by whatever had just happened, Lieberman stepped up to the mic. "I sincerely apologize for my actions, which I admit I cannot explain in any rational manner. I can only assume that the stresses of this presidential campaign have taken a psychological toll on me. As of this moment, I am withdrawing my candidacy for the office of Vice-President. It seems clear that my mental stability is in serious question."

Reporters erupted with questions. Lieberman chose the loudest. "I'm afraid I can't speak to that. That decision is now in the hands of Mr. Gore and the Democratic Party."

"Fucking shit." Faith began to stuff food into her face. "Eat fast, Harm. No patrol tonight. I don't know why he attacked her, but I'll give you three guesses who replaces him, an' the first two don't count."

*****

"She's not even governor yet," was Kate's response. "And Gore is just going to let her latch on to his campaign?"

"Already has," Faith pointed out. "Whatever power she's got, it affects people's minds, right? If she's half as tough that way as I am with my fists, nobody's gonna care about her experience, and scandal's gonna slide right off her. She probably made Joe hit her."

"Then what do we do?" Kate spread out a pile of paperwork on the desk. "If that's true, none of the dirt I have on her or Wolfram and Hart's going to matter one hair."

"Maybe she's not that powerful yet. Or maybe I can still take her with my fists before she gets any worse." Faith put her hands down flat on the table. "If she has a weakness, there's only one place to find it. We have to hit Wolfram and Hart."

"You've got to be kidding, Faith. This isn't a movie. Wolfram and Hart's offices are a fortress, and if we did get in nothing we found would be admissible in court."

"In a few months she's going to be runnin' the courts. You can't believe she'll stop at veep. We can't beat her that way." Faith pulled out a stake. "Either we can still take her down in the court of public attention, or there's a way to beat her ass down. Swords. Stakes. Guns. Nobody's invulnerable."

"You want to go down in history as a presidential assassin?" Kate raised her eyebrows at that.

"If she was a vampire, you'd do it. Right?" Faith drove the stake into the desk. "Either we do this or we let her take over the world. You wanna wait?"

"When you put it that way...All right, I'm in."

*****

Kate was parked across the street. She was insurance. Even as an ex-cop she was rhe most respectable of them, so if they had to start over she had to be the one to survive. Also, her beat-up convertible was what passed for a getaway car if they needed one.

Faith hated the idea of losing her motorcycle, but she could always steal a new one if it came to that. It was in a good cause, right? Like if the government didn't take taxes, who'd run things? Taxes were theft; so what?

The Buffybot slid off her cycle easily. Maybe it was just that they were both machines, but she'd adapted fast. Harmony, on the other hand, had had to pair up with Faith. Shoat wasn't big enough for her own, but she was comfortable with B-bot.

Too bad about their lack of a witch. Amy could've been a help here. "Harm, you're up first. See that corner? You're going up it. Try for the fifth story window, but go higher if you hafta."

Harmony fidgeted. "How come Slayers can't climb walls anyway? It's easy."

"Because we're not vamp...." Faith trailed off. _Could_ she scale a wall? She'd never tried. "Okay. I'll be behind you. No big. B-bot, Shoat, we'll be down to get you. If we're not back in fifteen minutes, crash the doors."

Shoat gave her a thumbs-up, which B-bot copied inexpertly. Somewhere she'd found a biker jacket and gloves, which made her look like a refugee from the eighties. Or a Terminator, though she needed sunglasses for that.

"You're still first, Harm." Harmony, by contrast, looked ridiculous in a black jumpsuit, but there was no help for it. She couldn't scale walls and break windows in a bright pink minidress. She slunk across the dark courtyard silently, though, so she wasn't as incompetent as she sometimes seemed. Faith could hear her from a foot behind, but no one else should.

Harmony scurried up the wall like a squirrel. It wasn't claws or adhesive or she'd have to take her shoes off. She just seemed to be finding tiny foot and toe-holds. Well, Faith should be able to do that. Speed mattered. The crevices between bricks were tiny....

Faith stopped thinking about it--she had the general idea--and jumped. Her toes and fingers caught, and she scrambled upward. For a moment or two it felt awkward, and then she had the hang of it. Harmony had two stories worth of head start, but by the time she reached the fifth floor window Faith was right behind her.

"So far so good." No alarms, no lights. Not that she could see or hear anyway. "Now for the hard part." Faith felt along the window. If she was lucky there would be a catch she could pop, but at worst she'd just smash the window and deal with whatever the alarms brought. "Not here...not here...here." She slipped the broken sliver of an old gift card in and twisted. Pop. "Five by five." The window slid up, and she pulled herself up to slip through feet first. "C'mon."

Odds were there was an alarm somewhere in here too. Maybe not, but no sense hoping. "Follow me. Stay close."

Some of these bottom floors were rented office space, but Faith suspected most or all of the renters were run by the big W&H. Hartram Research sounded especially transparent, but there were others--Weyland-Yutani, Omni Consumer...Cyberdyne? That had to be a joke, right?

Cameras. She was on camera. It was probably too late, but she nudged Harmony closer to the wall and into the shadows. "Hurry. We gotta get the others inside before security shows up."

"Is breaking and entering really a good guy thing? I mean it's not like I really care, right, but--"

"Zip it! We can talk about right and wrong later." Stairwell! "Get ready to drop down fast."

Harmony started to crouch, and Faith had to take her by the scruff of the neck and pull her through the door. "This way. Your turn to do what I do." She hopped up onto the stairwell railing and let herself slide down a couple of feet before jumping down to the next rail. "Harm! Move your butt!" Some sort of noises were coming from beyond the door, but from this distance Faith couldn't tell what. "Get down here!"

With a little bit of a squeak, Harmony followed. She looked a little wobbly by comparison, but it was working for her. Within moments Faith had reached the first floor. Harmony jumped down a second before the fourth floor door burst open. For a moment Faith thought the people coming through were human before they sprouted fangs. Vampires.

Vampires weren't the most reliable minions. They were as variable as humans, with an added tendency toward backstabbing. A vamp who thought they could take you would usually try. Why employ vampires as security?

Then she spotted the badges they were wearing as they started leaping down after her. Some of them were greying, with badges that matched. Others were pudgy. W&H had started with loyal guards and "enhanced" them. Then they could weed out any bad apples whose personality changed in the wrong ways. Made sense at least.

"Faith!" Shit! Bad time to get distracted. She bolted for the door. Harm was already wrestling with the locked front door.

"Don't waste time! Break it! We've been made already!" Faith barreled toward the door, but Harmony shattered it with a solid kick before she could get there. "Good job! Shoat! B-bot! Let's move!"

She was expecting them to come charging in on foot. Instead, she heard an engine rev, and the two shot past her on the bike. That was one way to do it! For a second she thought about running out to grab hers too, but security was already boiling out of the stairwell. She turned on a dime and shot down the hall.

BLAM! Shoat was firing a shotgun from the back of the cycle. Recoil _should_ have destabilized the bike, and Shoat _should_ have had to reload over and over. Neither of those were happening, though, and a large chunk of security turned to dust as Shoat methodically blew their heads off. Faith dodged around the hog and ran for the next stairwell. So much for guns being useless for Slaying.

Would've been nice to use the elevator, but even an ordinary one would be dangerous in a situation like this, and Kate's intel suggested some kind of mystical transit system was hooked into these. Faith took the stairs three at a time, but it was a long way up. Harmony was still with her; vampires didn't get tired the same way humans did. They just got hungrier.

Lilah's old office was near the top; her new office as chief executive was at it. Faith was halfway up the tower when a gigantic thing like a gorilla with spikes sticking out of its shoulders came crashing through the doorway and slammed her into the wall. Her first impulse was to kick it in the balls, but it didn't seem to have any. It roared, but more in anger than pain, and bit into her shoulder, great fangs ripping free a chunk of flesh. Roaring a little herself, she pounded her fists into its face before grabbing out her knife and stabbing it through the things eye into its brains.

Harmony, as they'd discussed, had kept running. It was more important to get the job done than to save any one of them. Unfortunately, Harm was now facing off against a pair of vampires twice her size. Faith tossed her a stake, they went through a quick couple of katas, and together they stabbed the bloodsuckers through the heart. Um. The other bloodsuckers.

"Another...twenty...floors!" Damn, she was getting winded. Worse luck, the tower narrowed at the next landing. They barged out of the stairwell together into some kind of glassed-in vestibule. "Over there," Faith yelled, and ran for the next nearest set of stairs up.

She almost made it. The sound of shattered glass echoed, something hit her even harder than the demon monkey, and suddenly Faith was outside the building, fifty stories up. And still rising.

She was tangled up with a leathery-winged thing that had scales and stank of raw meat. Not a vampire bat, thank you very much; the wings were large and smooth, not ribbed. Its hands were free and separate from the wings, the better to claw her with. Faith tried putting the demon in a wrestling hold, but if it needed to breathe it sure didn't let on. Still going up. Finally she just hung on. After all, what else could it mean to do this high up but drop her?

*****

"Downloading," B-bot said excitedly. "Grab the hard copy, Shoat! We've got what we came for!" Shoat was currently wrestling with a human-sized scaly green demon, a M'Fashnik probably, and winning. She didn't get the hard copy. Harmony raced through the door. "Grab those papers, you fiend," B-bot shouted, and Harmony grabbed.

"Where's Faith?" Shoat yelled. That did sound like a good question. B-bot didn't have any answers.

"A flying demon grabbed her!" Harmony sounded a little panicky. "It took her out the window!"

Shoat kicked the M'Fashnik in the throat. It stumbled backward, gasping for breath, and Shoat slammed the desk into its legs, sending the demon crashing through the glass to fall forty stories or so. She poked her head out the window. "Shit," the girl said, and pointed up. "There she goes. We can't save her. We've got to get out of here with the papers, and anyway we don't have a plane."

"But--" Harmony sputtered.

" _There's nothing we can do!_ " Shoat seized Harmony by the arm and all but dragged her to the window. "You want to jump? Be my guest." Harmony shook her head. She would survive the fall, in the dark like this. She might even walk away. But she'd be no closer to helping the Slayer.

"Let's get out of here," she whispered.

*****

Wasn't there supposed to be a limit on how high you could fly with wings, and didn't it have to do with air? Faith was pretty sure somebody was cheating when it came to natural law. She was gasping, her vision was grey around the edges, and her skin felt tight. She pulled away from the demon's stinking, slavering mouth, and saw the horizon curving like a ball.

The demon still showed no interest in the idea that its wings had nothing to push against, and anyway, Faith realized, it no longer mattered. The Hulk might survive a fall from this distance, but she wouldn't. She was going to die now. No more ifs, ands, or buts.

Energy surged through her. One last kill. She pulled her fist back and slammed it through the demon's gaping mouth, shattering its skull to pieces. The great wings stopped beating, and limply, the demon began to drop.

So did she. Well, there were worse ways to go out. Over the edge of the world she got a faraway glimpse of light. The sun was gonna rise, and there'd be a new Slayer for it to shine on. Faith had gone out fighting, and that was all she could ask.

She stretched out her arms and gave herself over to the long fall.

*****

Kate stared up into the deep black of the sky, wishing she could see more of it. She'd seen the demon go through the building and come out carrying someone. It took a few more minutes for Shoat, B-bot, and Harmony to get back, bearing important papers and miserable news.

They ought to be going. Cops would be swarming the area soon. Or demons. Or demon cops. Kate sat and watched the slowly lightening sky.

Somewhere high above the Wolfram & Hart Tower, a point of light flickered into being, then became a dull orange streak. Re-entry. The best she could hope for was that Faith had blacked out from lack of oxygen.

Kate had little belief left in her, but she found her hand clutching the old rosary in her pocket. "...pray for us sinners, now and in the hour of our death..." For good measure, she added a prayer to Saint Jude. Patron of Lost Causes.

She sat. She watched. Buffybot tried to press Shoat's face against her chest, and Shoat finally let her, leaving Kate and Harmony to bear final witness as the Slayer plummeted inexorably, trailing a streak of burning light, toward the earth.

And missed.

*****

Faith had time to watch. Not much time, but enough. She had time to go over her regrets. Plenty of those. Nothing to be done about them now, if there ever had been.

She could breathe again, at least, even if the air was hot enough to burn her throat. Her clothes caught fire as she dropped lower and seared away in an instant. Why she hadn't done the same she didn't know, but as they said, it was the sudden stop at the end that killed you. Her skin was reddening, even burnt in places, but she wasn't catching alight.

She fell through a thin layer of high clouds, ice crystals pelting her raw skin. There was no point in putting her arms out like a diver's. Even if she'd gotten out over the ocean, the water would shatter her like stone, and anyway she could see the city lights gleaming below her. She extended them anyway. It just felt right. What was it they said? It was a good day to die.

Towers began to rise away from the flat expanse as she began the last few moments of her fall. Instinctively she flinched away from the skyscrapers, and for no obvious reason her path bent away from them. It didn't matter. She began a slow spiral around the nearest. Somehow, some way, her fall was flattening out. The spiral grew tighter.

Thirty stories up. Twenty. Fifteen. Ten stories above the ground, and she was leveling off. Following the streets as they wove between buildings. Maybe the demon had drugged her. You didn't fall _sideways_.

...she wasn't falling anymore, was she?

Faith zoomed along above the streets. It wasn't far. The buildings grew farther apart, somehow dropping her lower. The Wolfram & Hart tower swam into sight. If this was a trip it was one hell of one. Kate's car was still parked several yards away. Didn't she know how to follow orders? Faith didn't, but she'd never been a cop.

Faith kicked her feet forward underneath her and dropped to the ground. She was gonna tear Kate a new one, and then she was gonna chew out Harm, and the bot, and...

"Holy _shit_ guys, why did nobody ever tell me the Slayer could fly?"

They stood. They stared. Finally the distant sound of sirens broke the trance. "How many neighborhoods did you flash?" Kate blurted out, and dragged her into the car. Faith didn't fight her.

Lilah Morgan or not...it was a good day to _live_.


	24. Copycat

"Buffy, listen to me. Think this through."

"For once, Slayer, Mr. Broodypants has the right of it. This is a bad idea."

Buffy sat cross-legged on her royal bed as if meditating. "That text hasn't steered me wrong yet. Iron Siaka's a pain to keep locked up, but since I started monologuing to appease the Yozis I feel a lot better." She hesitated. "Like a bad comic book mastermind, but still better."

"Appeasing the Yozis is one thing," Angel explained. "But I can't see why anything they'd let you learn could ever 'purge Yozi taint'. What do they get out of it?"

"I don't know," Buffy admitted. "But it says right out, 'the energies of Adorjan flow out of one's body'. What else could that do?"

"Nothing good for you, Slayer. It also calls this a shintai discipline. If anything it'll make you more like the bloody Old Ones, not less."

"Spike...I'm committed. I have to try it. I've got to stop being afraid of what I can do. I'm just asking you to stay here and help me deal if it is something bad."

Spike threw his hands up in the air. "All right. I can't bloody well stop you...and neither can you, you bloody wanker, so get ready to kick the butt of any big nasty that pops up!" Angel just shook his head and pulled out a sword.

Buffy took a deep, slow breath. She drew in the air...and doubled over as it forced its way out. Bloody streamers poured from her mouth, curling, writhing, as the Slayer screamed in silent agony, screamed as if she would never stop and flickered like static on a dying television screen, from color to shades of grey and back again. Angel made a motion toward her before realizing there was nothing he could do. Spike, already resigned, just watched in grumpy silence.

Long moments passed before Buffy sagged face down on the bed and wiped her mouth on the sheets. "Ok. Ok, you two were right. I am definitively never ever doing that again."

"Doing what again?" said Buffy from the floor. "What did I...you...we do?" She looked up at the Buffy on the bed, then down at herself and immediately wrapped her arms around her chest. "And why the hell am I naked?"

Old Buffy hopped up at once, mortified, and started rummaging through the wardrobe.

"Cause you just got created out of thin air, Slayer!" In spite of himself, Spike grinned. There were possibilities in this. "Look, all your problems are solved. One of you goes with the ponce--if you can think of a reason to--and one of you comes over to little ol' me!" He punched new Buffy playfully in the shoulder.

"Oww! Spike, that hurt!" New Buffy rubbed vigorously at the injured spot. "That hurt," she repeated more slowly. She scrunched up her eyes and concentrated. "No armor." She punched Spike back. "No Slayer strength. What the hell?"

Old Buffy returned and handed her a short dress, then punched Spike in the face, knocking him to the floor. "Well, it didn't just use up my...our powers. So that much is okay. Only...ugh, what the hell do I call you?"

The newcomer frowned at her as she pulled the dress up around her. "I'm still named Buffy." She tried flexing her left arm. "I'm not exactly weak. I've been like this before. The Cruciamentum. But I...have I even got anything left at all?" She ran across the room in what felt like slow motion. "Shit. I think...I think I might be just a copy." Her eyes slowly grew wider. "I'm not the Slayer. I'm not the real Buffy. I'm not really anything."

Angel put a hand on the copy's shoulder. "I swear you're real, Buffy."

"But I don't have any of the powers at all. That means...either there are two of us forever...or it means all she has to do is wish and I'll go pfft!" She rounded on old Buffy. "Why? I mean, I know why...kind of...but...but...why? Why were you so stupid?" She raised her fist and punched the original in the stomach. Old Buffy didn't even grunt. "God, what use even is this?"

Spike ran his fingers through his hair. "Um. Well...You could run the city and let her go out and fight!" The duplicate stared at him angrily. "No, seriously. You could be pretty and go to dances and...and eat whatever you want and be rich. And you'd be a normal girl, finally. Isn't that what you always wanted?"

"It's what she always wanted too," the duplicate pointed out, "and I can't trade. What's she going to do when she gets tired of watching me live her life? And anyway, I wanted that in California with my family, not here!"

The original Buffy had her hands to her temples. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to...I didn't think this was going to happen. I promise. I wouldn't do this to...myself, not on purpose."

"No, I guess not." The double put its hands on the original's shoulders. "I guess I'm sorry too. I'm still you...sort...of. And this is hard for you too."

"Can you do what Spike suggested? I mean, sometimes? Like if I have to go out and fight?"

"I guess that would make me Big Girl on Campus, wouldn't it?" DoppelBuffy sighed. "Sure, I can do it. Something to do, after all."

"Buffy," Angel interrupted. "You should reread this. It says you can 'cut her off ffom your life-breath'--"

"And she'll die, I know!" Buffy snapped. "I'm not doing that."

"But it also says you can 'call her back to yourself'. It sounds like she goes back to being part of you."

"Still sounds kind of like dying," DoppelBuffy muttered, rubbing on Buffy's shoulders as if trying to stay useful.

"Let me see that," Buffy said. Angel handed her the book. "When we put the two Xanders back together we weren't killing either of them. Right?"

"Right. I guess." DoppelBuffy said it reluctantly. "I guess I'm kind of enjoying being me, though. Even if it sucks."

"I promise to let you out again," Buffy mumbled, "if that's what you want." She took another deep breath, and the double dissolved into red streamers again. Buffy breathed them in and collapsed back onto the bed.

"Slayer? You all right over there?"

"No. No, Spike, I'm not okay. You were both right and I was being Stupid McStupid from Stupidville." She lay on the bed on her face. "God, what am I going to do? I can't hold back. I really can't. This world is going to run right over me if I try."

"I don't understand," Angel said quietly. "She was just like you. I don't see how this could change you any _less_ than it did."

"You don't? You're not seeing it, Angel. It makes me more like them than growing horns or tentacles. They're this...hive mind thing. They live...like, seven lives at a time. More, for the Yozis. They're more than one person. And now I am too."

**Copycat**

The great bulky thing reared up in front of him, and Charles Gunn drove both fists hard into what passed for its head. The thing looked like nothing more than a gigantic maggot, fish-white, squirming, mouthparts clacking together. It was more, he had to remember: like almost everything living in Yu-Shan, the monstrosity he faced was a god.

By his watch--the erratic changes between sun and moon today were throwing him badly off--it'd only been about half an hour since Cordelia'd had a vision that some kind of monster was attacking Anya's employees. Apparently all manner of cannibal gods lurked in the abandoned parts of "heaven"--what a joke that was--and this was one of the nastier sorts.

"Hit it from behind! I've got it occupied up here!" Gunn seized it by the mandibles and wrestled its head down for a moment. Damn, this thing was strong! When they got here, there were already at least a dozen minor deities lying around dead and this thing had devoured their essence for itself.

"What the hell is this thing?" Cordy shouted. She had a sword and was methodically hacking at the creature's tail. "Excuse me--what the heaven is it?"

Tara glanced over from where she was maintaining the barrier that kept the creature from attacking any more employees. "Something that isn't supposed to be here! I read about them. They're called leech gods and they're supposed to have all been banished a long time ago."

"Well, this one sure isn't banished!" He was doing some damage. The thing's biggest weak spot seemed to be its mouth--which was a problem, of course. Gunn wrestled with the thing's jointed mouth tentacles and finally managed to rip one free as the creature howled.

Still, the thing was massively strong. If the creature had been just a little less powerful, he thought he might have been glad to be out from under Angel's and now Anya's shadow. As it was, he really wished--pun definitely not intended--Anya were back from her meeting. She was supposed to be settling into her new convention offices today, though, so who knew when she might return?

Suddenly the thing's writhing tossed him into the air, freeing its head. "Dawn, look out!" He didn't know much about the kid, but he knew what it was like to lose a sister. Dawn spun around and punched the creature in the eye as it lunged at her, and it howled and went for Cordelia instead. Gunn leapt onto its back and tried to wrap his arms around its neck, but the creature was just too damn big. As it threw him off, though, Cordelia lunged forward and stabbed it in the mouth, driving the sword straight into its brain.

"Yes!" The monster collapsed, writhing in agony as it died, leaving Cordy trying to get ahold of her sword to pull it out.

"Excuse me."

"Yeah?" Gunn turned to look at the stereotypical old man in a _gi_. "If this is about my technique...."

"Oh, no, I can hardly fault your technique, for a mortal. I merely wonder if you have considered training in the supernatural martial arts." The little old man bowed his head very slightly. "In gratitude for my rescue, I--"

"If you want to train me, the answer is yes." Charles Gunn knew he was a badass--you didn't take down a thing like a leech god otherwise--but so far this world had mostly been above his threat level.

"Oh dear me, no. I am Imperious Blossom Instructor. I am the god of aged sifus, but I myself know nothing of the enlightened arts." The man bowed his head again. Before Gunn could get too angry, though, he added, "I can, however, teach you to manipulate your own chi, and put you in touch with a variety of old masters the moment you are ready."

"I'll take it." Gunn smiled grimly. Maybe this place would become survivable after all.

"Hey," Cordelia shouted. "What about me? Can you train me?"

Inperious Blossom Instructor looked her up and down. "Not a bit. You I can send to a sifu right away."

Gunn tried hard not to grind his teeth.

*****

"So the truth is, Megara, I don't think you actually want to be here." Xander put everything he had into it. The last thing he wanted to do was get into another fight.

"Don't think you can stop us, Anathema. You can't hold off my armada forever." There was certainly fire in her voice.

"Ma'am, you have a couple of slightly souped-up merchant vessels. And yes, you have some other Dragonblooded aboard them. Guess what we have too." Xander wondered if letting his anima shine a bit would intimidate her or just make her angry. "What if I told you I'm not even the sort of Anathema you seem to be expecting? I'm not actually from this world at all."

"Pull the other one, Anathema. Not from this world?" Cynis Megara actually giggled at him.

"There are other worlds than these," Xander intoned ominously. "Burning hells where the atmosphere would eat your lungs before you could even catch fire. Empty, dusty worlds with nothing to breathe at all. A great realm of cities inside the body of a living machine god. And...well, my rather boring little homeworld where I'm a construction worker by day and a demon hunter by night. The ladies all tell me how dashing and, ah, swashbuckly I am." Beat. "You're not buying any of this, are you? Too sophisticated. Well, tell ya what. Hables tu Español? Sabe mucho que no puedes ni imaginar."

That got her attention. "There is no such language," Megara said, half to herself. "How can you give me understanding of a speech that does not exist?"

"You know what they say, Cynis Megara. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Xander struck a dramatic pose. "And I know some of them. Wanna find out what?"

He had to restrain himself from snickering when he realized that she had literally gone weak in the knees.

*****

"I'm not doing this any more," Buffy grumbled, storming into the dungeon.

"Well, that's a relief," Iron Siaka said from where she was dangling. "You could let me down from here then."

Buffy looked up at Iron Siaka where she hung tangled in black iron chains, the collar she'd intended to put on Buffy if things had gone extremely well around her own neck. "You'd kill me anyway. Or I'd have to break out more powers to stop you. I'm not going to do that." She sat down in the middle of the floor. "Maybe I should let you. I never wanted this."

"Then you shouldn't have agreed to it," Siaka growled.

"You know what? I didn't, not at first. My first Watcher came up to me and was all, you have a destiny, Buffy, you're the only one who can stop the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness. And you know what I told him?" Buffy reached up and shook Siaka's chains. "I told him to fuck off. Because I was a stupid lazy teenage girl who'd rather party till the world ended than stop it from ending!"

If she was looking for sympathy, Iron Siaka didn't have any. When destiny came calling for her, she'd jumped. She held her silence and let the Slayer monologue. Buffy seemed to enjoy doing that, even though this wasn't the usual topic.

"Only you know what? I don't think it would've mattered. I think the Council had it down to a science. If they'd known I'd say yes to that pitch they wouldn't have given it. They'd have gone to some other girl, or else they'd have pulled the other string. 'Hey, creepy dark-skinned subhuman things are making trouble and it's your destiny to wipe them out!' They'd have offered me genocide like a gift in pink wrapping paper and a rose bow, if that was what they thought I'd jump at."

"So you're just a victim, huh?" Siaka spat at her. "With enough power to conquer a city without breathing hard, and your reaction to that is 'poor me, I didn't want to be the bad guy'? Dzhesus, you're pathetic, whatever you are. Go kill yourself if you hate it that much."

"You think you're different?" Buffy locked eyes with her. "Cyan told me about Sidereals. I'm sure she told some lies, but I've learned to read between the lines with her. They probably had you figured out before you were born. I bet you're dancing on their strings right now and you don't even know it. Which side are you? The side who wants to bring back the crazy god-kings and hand the world back to them because you can't fix it yourselves even with more power in your little finger than a nuclear weapon?"

Siaka tried to let it wash over her, but at the accurate assessment of Gold Faction she must've reacted, because Buffy responded, "Oh. So you're the side that killed off the god-kings and didn't have a plan to keep the world from ending twice over without them except 'hand power to a little tin dictator who'll keep the world in a permanent dark age'. Good job. Cute dystopia you're running. And even that's not working any more."

"Damn you! That's not how it is!" Iron Siaka found herself wrenching at the chains, fighting, clawing. Buffy raised an eyebrow, and the collar tightened on her neck. Lacking any better options, Siaka stopped struggling. "We did what we had to do. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than the alternative."

"I'm sure you believe that. You were trained to. Like a dog on a leash that you can't even see. Just like I was." Buffy stalked back and forth like a caged simhata. "So of course the vampires come for me anyway--wonder who let it slip I was the chosen one?--and it's accept my destiny or die. And then I'm in an institution for about five days trying to pretend that I don't believe in the things that nearly killed me. If that even really happened, cause something squirmed into my head later and changed my memories to make room for it. Did I really start bleaching my hair after that, or did it just change color? You'll notice it's been months since I fell into a dimension without quality hair care and my roots still aren't showing." Buffy snarled under her breath and leapt up into the dangling nest of chains, where she perched, looking Siaka in the eyes. Damn, she was pretty. Why couldn't they have met under different circumstances? "I can't trust my memories. I can't trust my powers. I sure as hell can't trust the voice in my head. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm losing my marbles."

"Let me out," Iron Siaka urged her. "Let me collar you and take you to Yu-Shan. Yeah, they'll probably execute you. Is that really worse than what's happening?"

Buffy shook her head, but it looked more like she was denying the situation as a whole than refusing to go. "I'm not going to use the new stuff. I spent five years being superstrong and superfast without getting this screwed up. I'm going to stop and focus on that, and maybe at least I won't get any worse."

"You don't really believe that, do you? Buffy, I can feel the Malfean energy radiating from you. You've already gone too far to--"

Rage twisted Buffy's expression. The crossed swords on her forehead flared green, and smoke curled from the corners of her mouth. She roared, "Shut up!" Green flames flickered from her mouth and eyes, wrapping her brow like a tiara.

Siaka tried to answer, but it felt as if her jaws had locked up. Finally she managed to croak out, "Good job with the self-restraint there. I'm impressed." Instead of pressing the advantage, Buffy whimpered and fled the basement.

Well, score one for Siaka. Leaving her...still chained and collared.

Nice job.

*****

Fred sat in her throne again. It was getting easier, and that worried her. Sure, she'd delegated a lot of her power to a democratic council, but the big stuff they still brouught to her. This was big stuff.

Cynis Megara knelt on the floor in front of her. "I have wronged you in calling you Anathema. I can only beg you: teach me what you know about this place. It is amazing! Tell me what to do for you and I shall. I'll work in the bilges--you do have bilges somewhere, right? I'll eat only bread and drink only water. I'll share your bed if you like. I'll--"

"Okay," Fred said hurriedly before the offers got any more graphic and made her blush. "Cynis Megara, you don't have to do any of that stuff. Just swear allegiance to me and the Council of Luthe and I'll make you a citizen. I'll have to keep you under guard for a while, but I'll let you study Luthe. I can't do it all by myself."

"I swear," Megara said. "I swear to obey you and the Council as a loyal subject should and to serve your city faithfully. Only please let me see this place!"

"That was fast," Fred said, shaking her head as Megara's fellow Dragon-Blooded escorted her away. "Xander, what did you do to her?"

Xander spread his hands wide. "I was only trying to do what I did with Ebon Siaka. Don't worry, I'm not going to take advantage." He scrubbed his fingers through his hair. "My bed's full enough as it is. Anya, Nelumbo, Anja, frikkin' Leviathan--heck, he barely leaves room for me!"

Fred stared at him, wondering if Lunar shapeshifting could make her eyes actually pop out like a cartoon's. "You've been sleeping with Leviathan?"

"Only twice," Xander mumbled.

"You know Anya's going to eat you for breakfast next time you see her, right?" Fred couldn't figure out what kind of guy would date a former demoness who took vengeance on unfaithful men and _be unfaithful to her_.

"I'm going to do what to him exactly?" Fred stared. The Dragon-Blood who'd been standing near the door was a male Fire Aspect with hair that literally seemed to be in flames. Only he wasn't, suddenly.

"Anh, do you really have to sneak up on me like that?"

"Apparently. So who else do you want me to sleep with to balance things out? Or should I just make you impotent? Because I can now, you know." She walked towards him boldly, hands reaching for him.

"You know we never actually got married, right? Which isn't to say I don't want to, just that this is sort of the traditional time for, ah, experimentation." Regardless of who technically had the advantage here--and Fred wasn't sure--Xander was the one backing away.

"Well, yes. You're definitely doing that if you had sex with _Leviathan_." Anya tilted her head. "You aren't going to do what Willow did, are you?"

 

"Um...I don't think so. For one thing one of us was a girl each time and...." He halted, seeing the strange expression on her face. "I'm digging myself in deeper, aren't I?"

"You are kinky as heaven, Xander Harris, and--" She broke off to French-kiss him hard. "--I love you very much--and I am going to have to rock your world tonight. Clear?"

"W-why wait?"

"Business before sex." She handed one parchment to him and another to Fred. "You are hereby ordered to appear in Yu-Shan to testify at my audit." She put a third parchment in her pocket. "I haven't managed to get to Buffy yet, but it's starting to look like that might be for the best. Anti-demon prejudice is almost as high here as it is on Earth."

"To Yu-Shan? Isn't that, like...heaven?" Fred couldn't stop herself from bubbling over at the idea.

"Definitely not all it's cracked up to be," Anya said. "It is pretty though, and some of the people are very nice."

"You're sure we're allowed to be there?" Xander looked awfully twitchy.

"Oh, absolutely. As far as most of the gods are concerned anyway. Not so much all of the Sidereals, but trust me, they can't stop you without massive trouble. There've been a few Solars and Lunars there from time to time, but up till now it's always been hush-hush. This is going to kind of upset the applecart a little but it's their own fault for pushing me." Anya gave him a big thumbs-up. "Go Team Scooby, right?"

Fred looked at Xander. Xander looked at Fred. "If you're sure it's safe..."

"Of course. You guys will be fine."

*****

"Stop this, Buffy. You've gone right round the bend!"

"Spike's right, Buffy. This is insane."

"Been there, done that. So so what? I'm crazy. You can't stop me anyway."

"Mistress! Please!" Dharma clung to her arm. "You promised us! All your reforms...."

"I was an idiot to think I could change anything, Dharma. Besides, if you're crying I'm doing what I'm supposed to. Right?"

"Mnemon is going to roll over this place," Marzi hissed. "She will kill us!"

"Doin' my job for me." Buffy kept going. Through the doors. Down the stairs. Through a much bigger set of brass-bound doors. Chains clanked beyond.

Iron Siaka glared down at her. "Brought your pet demons, I see. What're you going to cry about this time?"

"Done crying," Buffy said decisively. "And when I'm done crying, I take action. It's my job. Always has been." She hauled one particular chain free of the wall and lowered the Sidereal to the floor, then unlocked her manacles and finally the collar. "I'm done here. I can't do this anymore. I just can't." She placed the collar around her own neck. "So I'm turning myself in. I'm letting you take me to jail, Iron Siaka. Lock me up, throw away the key."

The Sidereal locked the collar almost reflexively and then...stared blankly at her. "You're serious. You know you'll be executed."

"Maybe Lysol can fix my Exaltation afterwards. I don't care any more. I'm done. I'm just done."

"Lytek," Siaka corrected automatically. "O...kay. I guess I can't complain. Only this could take a while."

"Lots of smugglers in the Sun Market. I bought us a couple of landspeeders. Discount for the Despot." She glanced at Marzi, who was weeping openly. "Swift riders?"

Marzi sniffled, "Yes, mistress."

"So it shouldn't take too long. Right?"

Iron Siaka shrugged. "It's a long way to the nearest gate. Let's go."

*****

Aphrodisia watched them go from the highest window of the palace. "So I guess that's done with?"

Stomach filled with butterflies, DoppelBuffy sat down on the throne. "Yeah. Time for phase two." She sure hoped the real Buffy had lied to Iron Siaka and told her the truth.


	25. Adversarial Proceedings

"You can't bring that in here," the celestial lion snarled. "It reeks. Why would you try?"

"This is my prisoner," Iron Siaka said. "The fallen Solar Buffy Summers. The one who took over Gem. She's here for trial." Siaka pulled back Buffy's hair, revealing the Collar of Dutiful Submission.

"Hmmph. I will call for transport. Can't have some akuma sullying the floor of heaven." The lion stalked off to the other end of the portal. Only minutes passed before he returned. "Prisoner transport on the way."

"Won't be long now," Siaka told Buffy calmly. This was how prisoners ought to behave. Not that they ever did.

"I know," Buffy said just as calmly.

A few more minutes passed before a flat-topped wagon pulled by scarab guardians arrived. A large metal cage sat atop it. "Board," the lion growled.

Without the faintest hint of defiance, Buffy climbed onto the cart and sat down on the empty floor of the cage. Iron Siaka frowned. Maybe Buffy had simply realized the futility of it all. How it was useless, in the end, to struggle against the laws of heaven.

But that didn't sound much like her.

The cart trundled forward. The sun disc in all its majesty shone down on gleaming rooftops and shimmering canals. The gods thronged the narrow streets, and not a few stopped to watch the ignominous captivity of a notorious akuma. There was no more ceremony than that: the prisoner deserved none.

Thus did Buffy Summers enter heaven.

**Adversarial Proceedings**

"Anya," the great lion said. There might have been the slightest trace of respect in the name; there might not have. "Welcome back to Yu-Shan."

"Do I merit a welcoming committee, sir?" She wasn't really certain how to address a being as elevated as Shining Barrator himself.

"In and of yourself, perhaps not, though I am in part here to greet and escort these worthies you bring with you. Alexander Harris. Winifred Burkle. Be welcome." The great lion tossed his mane. "I am here to request that you permit your audit to take place sooner than intended. This requires your personal permission, as it is a considerable inconvenience to you. It also requires clearance at a very high level to accomplish, and," here he coughed, "those with strictly proper authorization are indisposed."

Anya frowned. "May I ask why we need to do this?"

"Of course you may. A party you have named as a witness in your audit is here for her own, criminal audit. We anticipate that she will be quickly executed on charges of aid given to the enemies of Creation."

It was clear to her at once who that would be. "Buffy Summers. You want to execute Buffy Summers?"

"She is either an akuma or something immeasurably worse. A distorted reflection of what the Solar Exalted were intended to be. An agent of the deposed tyrants of existence."

"We are talking about the same Buffy Summers, right? One girl in all the world, saved said world from multiple apocalypses, defender of humanity from threats undead and various other?"

Shining Barrator raised his eyebrows. "That," he said, "would be an interesting claim for one to put forward in a court of law."

Anya set her jaw firmly. "I don't make a habit of being subtle. What it is is the truth."

"If that were in fact the case, conceivably it might prove to be a mitigating factor."

"Conceivably?" Xander had been letting Anya do the talking, as he should have, but she understood why this was too much. "Mister, Buffy is--"

Shining Barrator stooped down to put his eyes just above the level of Xander's. "A threat to Yu-Shan and the entirety of Creation, unless and until she can be _definitively_ proven otherwise. Do I make myself perfectly clear?" His voice softened very slightly. "I hope to do your friend justice. Even if she had done none of what you claim herself, she carries the third soul of one of Creation's greatest worthies. But above even that desire, it is my duty to protect all of existence. If that precludes justice, I will regretfully do as I must."

Xander dropped his eyes just a hair. "Then I'd say you and Buffy have a lot in common." 

*****

"Dear Lord," Giles breathed. The procession taking Buffy to prison was evidently designed to spiral through as many neighborhoods as practical. She was locked inside an actual cage, like something from a medieval triumph parade, and evidently some of the less couth divinites had been throwing filth at her. She spotted him and turned to give him one of her patented "I wallow in self-pity" looks, the sort of thing he'd thought he had finally broken her of. "I do believe she turned herself in, Wesley." It was good that the younger man had come into his own.

"We were afraid of something like this," the younger man replied. Not of Buffy's capture, which might have been for the best, but that Buffy's mental state was deteriorating. At least this suggested she was aware of it.

Giles glanced at him briefly. "Are you prepared?" Unfortunately, but very expectedly, there had been no references in any of Yu-Shan's libraries. They had been forced to work from memory.

Wesley gave a single nod. "I remember the ancient formula as well as you do. We will have to be very careful. More than one per person will likely be required, especially if we attract the wrong attention."

"We had better not," Giles reminded him. Their supply was very limited for the number of people they might have to deal with.

"I know."

*****

Dawn strained to see the procession. She needed to see Buffy, needed to know that she was all right. If Buffy was okay, then maybe _everything_ could still be okay.

"What's she got?" Gunn wondered.

"Got?" Surely they would have checked Buffy thoroughly for weapons or anything she might use to get free.

"I don't know. Just...I coulda sworn she picked up something and put it in her pocket." Gunn's brow furrowed. "I can't think what they would'nt've taken from her that'd be of any use at all."

*****

"All right," Willow said, making her voice project. "I understand why everyone is concerned. I know things are going to be awkward during the audit. I know things will get rough if Anya gets in enough trouble. But you can help her the most by staying orderly! Any rioting you do might be blamed on her!"

For the moment, they were listening. But it was a rough crowd, and technically Willow had zero authority to tell any of them what to do. Power, sure, but no right as they saw it. Anything she did to stop a few could make all the others go berserk.

So this whole "keeping order while Anya was busy" thing? Total bluff.

*****

"Pick that up," the flea whispered in Xander's ear.

"Hmm...what?" Bits of shimmering color materialized on the tables as Xander and Fred walked by. Most of it was little more than crumbs, but there were a lot of them, and here and there larger blocks were flickering into existence. He scooped up as much as he could manage.

"It's called ambrosia," Leviathan explained. "The stuff of concentrated prayer. Not normally much use to us, but we can receive it here as much as any god, and while most Exalts can't work it well ourselves--a few ancients like myself excluded--it makes a fine trade good."

"Or a bribe," Xander realized.

"Smarter than you look," Leviathan chuckled.

*****

"Please state your name for the record," said the lion dog, yawning. She supposed to him this was all routine.

"Anya Christina Emmanuela Jenkins." Everyone stared at her as if waiting for more. "Er...formerly Anyanka and originally Aud?"

Nazri stood up. "Pardon, but we only recently discovered the previous bearer of her Exaltation. Her last incarnation was Joran Abren, formerly of Lookshy. Joran was killed by a nephwrack in the Underworld just a few months ago at 462 years old, and apparently his Exaltation treated Anya's arrival in this world as her birth."

"The court thanks you, Nazri." The lion dog turned back to her. "And your age?"

Anya sighed. Same reaction all over again, no doubt. "I am eleven hundred forty-two years old." Eyes widened and murmurs spread through the courtroom. Even gods found her age baffling. Never mind that most of them were probably millennia older. "Closing on eleven hundred forty-three now."

"The court acknowledges Wong Bongerok, Censor of the South. You may proceed." The lion dog stepped back and was replaced by an obese, dark-skinned man in a red robe.

"Anya, can you tell us how you obtained this great age? Certainly you don't appear to be in your second millennium." Blue flames flickered around him as he gestured.

"Easy. I spent most of that time as a vengeance demon. I was transformed into one by D'Hoffryn, third soul of Cecelyne."

Wong Bongerok gave out with an affected gasp and flourished his hands. "And what did you do in D'Hoffryn's employ?"

"I granted wishes to scorned women so that they could obtain vengeance against their lovers. Most of them wished poorly--as D'Hoffryn intended. The result was widespread suffering and bloody death."

This time the gasps came from the audience. Not all gods were compassionate beings--how could they be?--but most at least liked to pretend.

"Anya, is there any way you can justify this sort of behavior?"

She knew they expected some kind of floundering moral answer. She could give a better one than they expected, but that wasn't going to fly in any case. "The same justification any Sidereal Exalt has for their life prior to Exaltation: destiny. I did a lot of horrible things, things that can't be given any coherent moral basis. I ended lives, relationships, families, businesses, empires, and dynasties. You don't have to forgive me for any of that. But it served a necessary purpose in Saturn's eyes. I have a millennium of endings under my belt. Some of them are worse than others. As an Exalt working for the Bureau, I may have to do even worse things without flinching. Now that I do understand the morality of my actions, who could serve better in this post than me?"

The audience murmured in confusion. Even Bongerok seemed taken aback. Finally he floundered out, "If you have any witnesses to your reformation, you should present them now."

"I call Alexander Harris to the stand."

The crowd inhaled deeply as Xander stood up and walked over to the witness stand. It was subtle, but he had definitely changed since leaving Sunnydale. Xander slouched a little, but where before it had been pure laziness, this was deliberate. It put people at ease. It said, "I like to laugh, and you can laugh with me." And yet there was an authority about him too. The word "jovial" sprang to mind: once, a long time ago, it had meant "like the king of the gods".

Xander leaned jovially against the witness stand. "Alexander Lavelle Harris, aka the Dread Pirate Roberts. My last incarnation was..." The air of his authority shook but didn't vanish. "...was Queen Amyana of Luthe."

Once again, the audience let out a collective sigh. The Solars still held the imagination of most of Heaven, where their authority had never been truly repealed, only suppressed.

"Xander, how did we first meet?"

"You wanted me to go to the prom. You didn't know anyone else who might take you."

"Why not?"

"Well, you were newly human. Your power center had been smashed and D'Hoffryn wouldn't make a new one for you. He thought you were careless."

"I suppose I jumped right into fighting evil with you and your friends. Wouldn't you say that?"

Xander chuckled. "You know better than that, Anh. Even after you stopped trying to get your powers back, you mostly just hung out with me because you were attracted to me. You left town the next time the apocalypse rolled around because you were afraid. You did give us some useful info. And you came back."

"I got better, then."

"It took some time. You got to like saving my life, I guess, and then you started saving other people too."

*****

Buffy's cage had been left in a dark cell beneath the courtrooms. She didn't have room to stand up. She didn't have a toilet. She didn't have anything to clean herself with. She certainly didn't have any weapons. She had herself.

Oh. And one other thing.

One of the scarab guardians who had brought her here waited just inside the cell to let her out when she was called.

"C'mere," Buffy said. "Take this."

The scarab came to investigate. It was only prudent. Through the bars she handed it a chunk of the rainbow material--the ambrosia--that had materialized just inside her cage.

She murmured a name in the being's ear. "Tell me where he is."

Fair enough, it seemed. "Upstairs, verifying some things about your 'friends'." That was better than she expected.

"Bring him here the moment he's done," she said. "Take this." She handed it another piece. "And unlock my cage."

That was the hardest. The god hesitated. But payment was payment, and clearly if she wanted _him_ here she wasn't planning to leave. It unlocked the cage.

*****

"I'm afraid I don't know my previous incarnations either," Fred drawled. She didn't have to use so thick an accent, but it seemed to amuse the audience. It was probably a hick accent here too.

The man made of glow stepped forward at Bongerok's gesture, holding out an implement that looked a bit like a series of lenses made of metal. "Hmm," Lytek said. "I don't believe most of these will mean anything to the court, aside from Cortan Pel, a particularly charismatic Changing Moon who made some trouble in Paragon about seven centuries ago. However, just before the Usurpation we have a figure of extreme interest: the No Moon Tanalus of the Many-Faceted Eyes." A murmur ran through the courtroom; clearly _the gods_ knew who that was. Fortunately Lytek clarified: "Lunar mate of Salina."

"You've got to be shitting me," Renjin whispered in her ear. "Your mate's Salina? Damn. We could use her help right about now."

Lytek withdrew, and Anya stepped forward again. "You don't know me that well, I know. But there's something critical I want you to talk about. What's your impression of Buffy?"

"Um...I came here not knowing much about Buffy. I Exalted trying to get her to do something about slavery here. But it wasn't because she didn't care. She was, um, looking out for her friends first." Fred shifted nervously. This was worse than presenting papers in school. Nothing depended on that but a grade.

"Is that the only reason she wouldn't do anything?"

"Buffy didn't want to get too involved with this world. She wanted to leave as soon as possible. The Yozis aren't very aware of our world, so she could fight them without being used. Here, they want her to set them free."

"She doesn't want to do that?" Anya leaned forward as if casually curious.

"She'd rather leave this world screwed up than risk making it that much worse."

"Pardon me," Bongerok asked, "but what--?"

"Buffy is a key witness in this audit," Anya explained. "I want to give you every imaginable reason to trust what she has to say. Maybe she's being used by the Yozis, but she doesn't serve them willingly. I need to establish that."

*****

"Let Anya finish with him," Iron Siaka said. "We want to be sure she comes out smelling like a rose, and hell...I'm sure he means well. But he's a Solar. Orders from the highest level."

"Then make it look like an accident." The assembled gods grumbled at that. "You want it to look like a _Solar_ died in an accident?"

"There's a riot brewing outside. Anya's a very popular person right now. All you have to do is join in." Siaka made a sour face. This wasn't her forte at all, but it was her responsibility. "He'll try to stop it. It's in his nature. Nobody will ever know who did him in. You'll be well-compensated."

*****

"Before you call any more witnesses, Nazri has requested to speak on your behalf." Bongerok looked bored. No doubt Nazri had paid him off. Anya spread her hands. Why not?

"Anya," Nazri said, "it's been suggested that you are already misusing your position to secure kickbacks. Can you explain what you were doing?"

Anya nodded. "I was going to get to this, but sure, I'll explain now. I know a fair amount about how societies work. What you have here--in the Terrestrial sphere, I mean--is not sustainable. You're trying to defend against infinite enemies with a poor and oppressed population limited to primitive metalworking and some scraps from a more advanced age. Now your ace in the hole--the Empress and her control of the Sword of Creation--is gone. Missing with no clues to where she went. That's not sustainable. So I set out to fix that."

Nazri blinked. The assembled gods stared. "With practice petitions meant to teach you how the Loom works? Please explain what you're trying to do."

"It's not hard. What Creation needs in the Terrestrial sphere is a literate, well-educated population and a better standard of living. Not decadence--just some leisure time to work on basic research and invention.

"The Guild is key to that. But it's wasting resources on slaves and drugs, which are economic dead ends. What I did--chapterhouse by chapterhouse, to avoid the Essence burden problem--was bless the Guild. Every chapterhouse I've had time to work on will prosper--unless it deals in slaves or hard drugs. The more of those it buys or sells, the worse its business will suck.

"I admit I don't know the best approach. So I've been experimenting with different blessings and curses. But as soon as I had a better official standing, my goal was to recruit more Sidereals to help me. Defending Creation is our job. You want to do it effectively? Get the people to help you. Your output of advanced weapons--against Malfeas, the Wyld, the Underworld--can be doubled in a matter of years, and it will keep doubling. You see? Are we clear on this?"

For several minutes the court was silent. Finally Nazri spoke again. "I think we are. But you said, 'in the Terrestrial sphere.' That implies that you have a plan for Yu-Shan as well."

Anya nodded. "Yu-Shan has an employment problem because you have only one basic resource, which the gods can't make for themselves: prayer. Yes, there are some specialized luxury goods you import from Creation, but they don't do much for the economy because only a few traders are working for them. You have gobs of gods living on the dole with no prospect of doing anything else."

"The Unconquered Sun implemented the dole for that reason," Nazri said, frowning.

"It was very nice of him," Anya said, trying to be diplomatic. "But it's not a very effective system. Gangs monopolize the basins in the poorer districts. And in any case, there's no incentive to do a good job for the gods who do have work. I'm not naming any names, but corruption is everywhere."

"Anya, it's an interesting concept. I'm not sure it can work on a larger scale." Nazri shook his head. "The Bureaus only require so many workers."

"I'm doing this on my own obol," Anya explained. "I'm employing those gods specifically who have the fewest opportunities. Until we can come up with a better system, at least it fills some of the gaps." She noticed Ayesha Ura glance her way when she mentioned a better system, but now wasn't the time to discuss getting the gods working at their actual job again: answering prayers. That would set the Bronzes to ravening for her blood.

"I think we can call that a noble cause," Nazri agreed. "Though I'll leave it to the Censor to decide." Anya tried not to snicker. She'd seen the reaction to her ideas. Some gods were angry or worried, as she had expected, but everyone was intrigued. If Nazri's bribes weren't enough to sway Wong Bongerok, plenty of others were willing to chip in. Not everyone--there would be saboteurs and probably even an assassin or thirty. But hey--that's why she was Exalted, right?

*****

"Don't make a move," Lytek warned her. Buffy put on her best innocent face. "I have to admit I'm pleased that you called me."

Buffy held still...except for her mouth. "Fix me."

"Hmm." Lytek cocked his head to one side. "Interesting. And involuntary, so I'll presume that it was merely a strong wish poorly expressed. As a matter of fact I will try. I assure you, I find your state quite distressing. Ah. No, you are truly not an akuma. Something both more and less."

Buffy sat back, pretending to relax. "Is that good news or not?"

Lytek held up a set of lenses. "Hard to say. The alterations to an akuma are rather superficial. They don't carry to the next incarnation. They do, however, radically impair the akuma's free will. In that respect I can vouch that you are unchanged. Your will is unquestionably your own."

Buffy's next question was interrupted by the arrival of Iron Siaka, flanked by a pair of lion dogs. "Lytek," she said with nearly-concealed irritation. "We need you both in the courtroom." She opened the cage door, scowling.

"You had but to ask," the god responded.

*****

"Can her Exaltation be repaired?" Wong Bongerok asked. Anya leaned over the bar curiously. She was fine with Buffy as she was, but these people clearly weren't.

"That will take time to determine," Lytek said, disappointingly. "She is not an akuma. Her own body, mind, and souls are unaltered save as her Exaltation dictates. It is the Third Soul itself that has been tampered with, and in a rather complex manner. The matter requires further study."

"What of her previous incarnations?"

"No one the court will recognize for several millennia." Lytek was practically wringing his hands as he said this. "For her to be native to this timeline, she would have to predate Creation itself. Even determining who she was before that will require a prolonged examination."

Bongerok turned to Buffy. "You claim that you have spent several thousands of years as the only known Exalt?"

"Yes."

"Defending humanity from demons?"

"It's what I do."

Bongerok raised his hands in puzzlement. "And yet your Exaltation has plainly been tampered with by the Yozis."

"Kimbery," Buffy said flatly. "The others must have done something she didn't like, and she set me to make them pay."

Anya stood up straight. "Buffy, how many times have you saved the world?"

Buffy's tone remained dull. "Two dozen times or more. Maybe five that would've definitely succeeded without me. The Master and his attempt to free the Yozis. Angelus waking the Metagaos _jouten_ we called Acathla. Mayor Wilkins' Ascension to become a Third-Circle demon...I think. Adam's attempt to build an army of enhanced demon hybrids. And Glory trying to destroy the dimensional barriers to get home."

"Xander can verify these events," Anya began, only to be interrupted.

"Respected worthies," a lion dog with a closely-cropped mane began, "a riot has begun in the streets outside this court. We would like to request that these Exalted aid in quelling it."

Bongerok made a noise in his throat. "Can this matter not be resolved without involving the participants in an official audit?"

The lion dog sighed. "The riot would seem to be _about_ this audit."

*****

Tara clung to Willow's hand as the crowd surged and roared. Her stomach was a knot of fire inside her as the gods themselves raged. Goddess help her, what was wrong with this world where the heavens themselves bred slums and starvation?

For the moment she and Willow held the barrier that protected the courthouse, but sooner or later some magical attack was surely going to overwhelm their forcefield. Tara chanted furiously, a chant that was also a fervent prayer, and hoped that some power somewhere was listening.

The crowd quieted. Tara spun, searching for the cause. Xander? Willow's friend stood at the head of the stairs to the courthouse beside his irritating fiancee. "I'm going to have to ask, what the hell is the meaning of this disturbance? You people--you gods should be ashamed of yourselves. What we're dealing with here is a routine audit. Anya's going to come through just fine!"

Anya added her voice to his rebuke. "The Maidens didn't bring me here to fail! I'm here to end the corrupt system that's ruined your home, and I'm not going to let that system stop me with some simple investigation into my past. I promise you, your lives will keep getting better, but rioting like this will only hurt our position and slow my reforms down."

Xander started to speak again, but Tara didn't get to hear him. With a twang like a snapped harpstring, the barrier burst, and angry gods surged up the stairs, hurling bolts of force and lightning and fire. Tara spun, hoping to block at least some small proportion of the charge. She raised her hands, preparing to fling missiles of her own, something she did only in direst need, but--

"Your shirt!"

It was only the tip of a thorn that protruded from Willow's chest, but it had penetrated her entire torso to lodge there, tenting Willow's blouse as the lifeblood pumped out of her, soaking the garment almost at once.

"Aw, f--" Willow began, cut short at once as she crumpled onto the steps.

Nothing was right any more. Willow was dead on the streets of heaven, and it was only fitting that the sun went black as tar. It was only fitting that the canals ran red with blood.

Nothing would ever be right again.


	26. War in Heaven

I want you to be clear on this. So far this Exaltation has proven useless to me. Its memories make its hosts rebellious, regardless of their original motives. Yet to purge them more thoroughly would ruin its best attribute.

Willow wondered how long she had to digest all this. Her body was lying crumpled on the courthouse steps, the thorn that had pierced her chest jostled free.

Time is effectively halted. Consider as long as you like. I ask nothing of you. Do as you like. Give free reign to your desires.

_You wouldn't tell me that unless you were sure I was serving your interests._ Willow wasn't the best at judging people's intent, but she wasn't stupid. _You've been watching me! Haven't you?_

Why deny it? Yes, I have observed you. You fancy yourself a hero, a defender of life. Perhaps you are. And yet you want the secrets of the greatest weapon ever created.

Willow took a moment to mull that over. _Maybe it would be better for me to die, if I'll be that much use to you just existing._

The voice in her head chuckled. Do as you like. I doubt you'll survive the next few minutes. A shame your fate was to die in Yu-Shan, surrounded by the guardians of heaven. The Exaltation will return to me and eventually I'll manage to make it tractable. Someone will prove more loyal than Salina was independent, and I will have a useful agent. In time. As you wish.

 _Wait! You're sure you aren't going to try and manipulate me?_ If this being, this "Walker in Darkness", really had no way to control her...well, she did have work to do and people to protect. And she could have the power she wanted.

So far all my attempts with this one have failed. I don't expect you even to survive. Why present you with orders you won't live to carry out?

_You get what you want. I get what I want. Sure, why not? It's a deal._ She would survive and prove him wrong. Finally she could be the hero.

**Chapter 26--War in Heaven**

"Oh shit!" Fred started to lunge past Xander, but by the time she saw the thorn launched it was too late. The missile took Willow through the heart, dropping her almost instantly.

Willow's girlfriend wailed aloud and began flinging bolts of energy at the crowd of gods as it surged up the steps. Xander started for the stairs himself, only to halt in midstride. Perhaps Leviathan was telling him it was already too late.

The sun went out. Fred flinched involuntarily before remembering that the sun here was just a projected image and not a real fusion-powered star, then flinched again on realizing that it made even less sense for the disc in the sky to go jet black. Roiling eddies of blood surged through the canals Fred could see in the distance.

Wreathed in a spiral of black text that seeped out of the world around her, Willow rose to her feet. There was nothing natural about the motion; she might well have levitated her body into a standing position. "Uck," she muttered, prodding at her chest wound as black energy sank into her, staining her hair, her eyes, her very veins. "Nasty." She was the essence of power from beyond the world. Fred shivered. Someone had said once that power was the ultimate aphrodisiac. Right now she could believe it. The disc on Willow's forehead was the final, unfathomable black of an event horizon. It made her guts want to empty; it drew her gaze relentlessly.

Then the shouting began.

*****

Xander began to rush forward, only to feel a hand grasp his shoulder. "Think, boy!" Leviathan's unbreakable grip held him fast. "You cannot save her, and this is a trap we have sprung and must endure. Hold fast!"

Behind him, Leviathan began to grow. Around him, more Lunars dropped from his body and from Fred's, taking on their war forms or the shapes of dangerous beasts. The Sage of the Depths. Peleps Kolohi. Anja. Renjin, though for some reason the Changing Moon had become a brightly-colored frog. Raksi? She was here? The baboon-woman crouched, laughing wildly. Others Xander didn't recognize.

The mob of gods broke at the sight of them, milling about in confusion, but the looming bulk of Leviathan's war form must have been an unbearable challenge. Slighter, more human figures arrayed themselves beyond the gods. Sidereals, falling into the forms of their martial arts. Perhaps far more deadly than any Lunar beasts.

"Defend Yu-Shan!" It was the voice of Chejop Kejak. The ancient master stalked forward to the point of the wedge. Leviathan bellowed out a roar of defiance, of denial.

Battle was joined.

*****

"You want out, right?" Iron Siaka's motions were listless, but she was removing the collar from Buffy's neck. "And you want to save your friend, Willow? I'm afraid she's in as great a danger as you now."

Buffy wanted nothing more right now than to stop hurting inside, but that would never happen if Willow died. "What's going on out there?"

"Try telling Iron Siaka to forget us and get back to the fight," the stranger suggested. Buffy did so, and Siaka hurried off, mace at the ready. "Half the city is in a panic, the Incarnae are rubbing their eyes and looking around, and the Lunars are facing off against the Bronze Faction. Good luck to the Lunars; they'll need it."

"So who are you and why are you helping me?" Buffy rubbed her wrists and stretched her back.

"Gold Faction has an interest in keeping both of you safe, if only to repair your Exaltations." The woman pulled Buffy to her feet. "I run the Cult of the Illuminated. Not that you'll remember long, but the name's Shaia."

*****

It was the longest shot that Rupert Giles had ever considered. He was, in the end, just a Watcher. Just a man.

The formula with which he had tipped the bolts was something else again. Of all the compounds used in the Cruciamentum this was the most ancient. It was not a muscle relaxant or an adrenaline suppressor. In truth it was only still used because it was traditional. The scrap of text that survived regarding it said only that it "disrupted the essential mystic force of the Slayer". Giles now believed it was the most critical of the drugs administered, believed it strongly enough to gamble the fate of worlds on. Rather a frightening thought, if he allowed himself to consider it.

He aimed the crossbow. Before he could do more, the aged man at the triangle's point glared and made a sweeping motion with his hand. The crossbow shattered into a million pieces.

Damn.

*****

Tara wanted to burst into tears and never stop. She wasn't as strong as the other Scoobies; she knew that. But she forced herself to hold the emotion inside and take Willow's arm. "Goddess, Will. Why?" She stumbled as she realized that Fred had taken hold of Willow's other hand. What was that about?

"It was worth the risk," Willow said. "Look around us. This world needs help."

Fred's expression was pained. "Abyssals aren't 'help', Willow."

A deafening roar shook the three of them. Willow turned to see a lion dog approaching them and wrenched her hand free of Fred's grasp. She bent low, dipping her hand into the bloody canal, and flicked a handful of droplets at the divine policeman. They shot out like bullets, piercing its hide, and the being howled and backed away, at least for now.

"Not good enough," Willow murmured. She looked around at the vast crowd of rioters and raised her voice. "I told you before to CLEAR OUT! No more warnings!" She raised both hands, and black lightnings crackled from them, searing the chaotic mass of divinities. Red lightnings, weaker but still powerful, roiled back to her from their wounds, draining off the energies from their lives. "Having fun now! I almost don't want you to listen up, but listen up! Clear the damn plaza NOW!"

Willow grinned as if the dispersing deities were her doing alone--and no doubt she was having some effect. Tara saw without the haze of euphoria that had filled Willow's dead-black eyes, though, and two groups of much more powerful Exalts were squaring off as the plaza emptied.

Willow did finally seem to see Xander and strode confidently toward him, Fred and Tara hanging onto her arms. From the look in her eyes, Fred must feel almost as useless as Tara did, and she had so much more power it was laughable. Tara couldn't fathom why Fred suddenly seemed so interested in Willow; Will's blackened features were no deterrent to Tara in themselves, but they weren't exactly conventionally attractive.

Xander backed warily away from Willow, though, and both his collection of Lunars and the Sidereals arranged behind the old man--someone important, Tara thought--lifted weapons or fists as she approached.

"Willow!" Fred shouted in her ear. "You're nowhere near strong enough to take them all on! Stop it now! They'll kill you! I know how it feels, but they are _all_ stronger!"

"Please, Willow." Tara wasn't sure how much of her girlfriend even remained, but if she could be reached now there was a chance of getting through to her in the long run.

That jet gaze swung between them. "Willow doesn't live here any more," she said at last. "But you're right. I need to be stronger first."

For a moment Tara thought the assembled Exalts would join together and attack Willow anyway. Then the moment broke as Leviathan bellowed out a challenge, and vast mystic energies surged between the two gathered hosts, many of the individual currents dwarfing even the terrifying power Willow had manifested.

"Get her away, Tara. Please. I have to help." Fred turned and ran for Xander's side, calling back, "Take care of her!"

As if there were anything Tara could do.

*****

"Buffy!"

The Slayer raised her exhausted gaze at the sound and saw _it_ running at her. The thing that had raped her mind, made her fight the invincible, and brought her here to be corrupted. Shaia kept moving, heading for a group still emerging from a nearby building, but Buffy turned to face the thing that had called itself her sister.

Dawn flung her arms out in a lying embrace, and Buffy pretended to return the gesture--then spun and clotheslined her, dropping her to the ground.

"Buffy? What are--?" She rolled frantically aside as Buffy's fist slammed into the pavement.

"What am I doing? I'm doing what I should've done the first time I laid eyes on you!" A second punch cracked the stone next to Dawn. "You are _not_ my sister. There is nothing good or clean in you!" The third punch connected, breaking the thing's arm. "You can't feel anything real! You're nothing to me!" Mock fear and despair welled up in the pretend-girl's eyes.

A blow from behind sent Buffy flying. "You get off her!" Buffy picked herself up off the ground, expecting Xander or Fred or Anya to meet her gaze.

Dawn's rescuer was Glory. The hellgoddess hoisted Dawn up by her intact arm. "Don't try to fight the Exalted," Glory warned. "You're not up to it yet. I'm a specialist."

With one last terrified look at Buffy, Dawn turned and fled. Buffy let them go.

The thing that had pretended to be her sister and the thing that had tried to end the world deserved each other.

Shaia came running up, flanked by a group of other Sidereals, including the one who'd called himself Crimson Banner Executioner. "Help the Lunars!" Shaia shouted. "Buffy, we have to get--"

Buffy stalked toward the battle. She had seen a real friend.

*****

Anya was torn. The Sidereals, even Kejak, had been good to her. Even if this audit was their doing, it wasn't anything personal. Only now they were preparing to kill Xander, something they had only discussed before.

He was dangerous. But then, all of them were dangerous. Gunn had beaten down a leech god with no superpowers at all. Tara, for all her peaceful ways, could kill you with an idle gesture. Xander himself had slammed Glory with a wrecking ball, hurting her as much as any of them till the very end. Who was an ex-demon to judge when Xander was too dangerous to live?

Damn it all. She was. She was an Ending now. And she chose "not yet". Maybe she was wrong. Anyone could be, though. Even Chejop Kejak.

She strode up behind Xander. She had prepared for this during the trial, after all. At least a little.

Anya assumed Throne Shadow Form.

*****

Compared to most of the Sidereals here, Xander was a child. He had been a Solar only months. But he was still a Solar. And he had spent the last five years of his life fighting enemies far stronger than he was. This wasn't so different.

Well, maybe it was. The Sidereal he was fighting flickered aside from his strongest blows as if he'd never been there. There were ways, if he could just remember them. Nelumbo had been right not to let him rely too much on Wavecleaver; they'd all had to leave their weapons behind.

Anya gestured emphatically, and she and Fred moved into position around their foe. Her kick missed, as did Fred's punch, but Xander's blow connected with the Sidereal's jaw, knocking him down.

"Good show, Anh!" His girl beamed at him and together, the three of them moved on to the next enemy.

*****

Giles was just glad that after destroying the crossbow the aged Exalt had ignored him and Wesley. From the looks of it he could have taken out the whole group of Scoobies, perhaps minus their Exalted, with one flick of his finger.

He almost called out as Buffy came racing up, but she silenced him with a finger to her lips. She reached him, hugged him tightly, and picked up the shattered bolt.

"Cruciamentum," he murmured. The Exalted might hear him even over the roar of battle, but with a little luck they couldn't guess at the implications. Buffy began to jerk away, then glanced up at the fighting and understood. She picked up a handful of bolts and began to slip closer.

*****

Another contingent of Sidereals was forming up around the black-haired abomination. Chejop Kejak snarled under his breath. Gold Faction had betrayed them for the last time. There would be an end to the coddling of traitors to Creation.

To his dismay, Anya had joined her fiance among the Lunars. What a pity it would be to lose her. Stronger methods would be in order after the battle. Perhaps there would have to be a re-education program for all of Gold Faction, though he had always resisted such drastic measures. Desperate times, however. Anya was not wrong that unity and reform were needed.

Chejop faced his only possible equal now. He faced Leviathan and knew himself the Admiral's better. If only. If only they had tried to recruit the Lunars. If only they had died on Calibration. If only their Exaltations could have been caught as well. If only. Leviathan brought down a massive fist, and Chejop blocked it with the merest flick of his staff. He could do this all day. His powers over Fate informed him of the slightest dangers. His doom might be drawing near, but it would never come from a mere Lunar, not even the Admiral. Perhaps he would die in bed tomorrow.

A dozen sharp points scratched his back. Chejop spun. The Summers girl. What a fool. He flicked his fingers at her and flung her away. She could be dealt with later. She was barely a flea, outside Fate or not.

Leviathan swung a massive tail at him, and Chejop leapt up and over. Strange. He felt winded, and his caste mark flared brightly. How was he digging so deep already? He rubbed his back. A poison? Well, he merely needed to purge it from his system.

The raging whale-man's kick sent him flying.

*****

"Dzhesus," Shaia gasped as Chejop Kejak crashed against a building. Willow stared at her. "Sorry. Some kind of slang term going around the Bureau. Willow, it's not safe for you here right now. Come with me and Buffy. We can train you."

Willow sneered at her even as she considered the point. _Better than serving Deathlords,_ an unfamiliar part of her pointed out. _Watch out for them to manipulate us too, though._ "Get us out of here with Tara, and I'll go."

"With Tara." Shaia shook her head--in puzzlement, not rejection. "You strangers know so little. As you like."

Willow flung more of the strange black bolts. Not electricity, not really. "Not leaving without her."

"Then come on."

*****

The immense whale-man stomped again on the man who had tried to kill Xander. Buffy stood back and let him. Chejop deserved it for what he'd done. To her friends. To this world. And ultimately to her, apparently. "I could've been a hero," she murmured.

Shaia took her by the shoulder. The Sidereal had Willow's hand, and Willow Tara's. "Come with me if you want to live," she said.

Buffy hesitated. "Lytek," she began.

"In a few weeks, maybe." Shaia sighed. "Heaven will be in chaos at least that long. You're not safe here even in his custody till things settle."

Buffy hung her head. "I'm not sure I do."

"Then give yourself the benefit of the doubt." Shaia seized her hand. "The main gates are guarded, but there are secret ways out."

Buffy glanced at Willow, who shrugged. "She's not wrong. They hate us here." Tara just looked terrified.

"Can we get back to my place?" Buffy had no intention of abandoning Gem if she could avoid it. Either Mnemon would take it for the Realm or a truly malicious Infernal would take over, wearing her face perhaps. She had just wanted to free herself from the Yozis.

"As soon as possible," Shaia agreed. "Move!"

Buffy moved.

*****

The battle was not yet over, not truly. But Chejop Kejak, secret lord of Creation, was down. "Why?" he begged Anya, who stood over him. "Why?" His body was broken. It would heal, of course. If there were time. But months would be required. Months he no longer had.

Anya's tears seemed genuine enough. "All things end," she said quietly. "Even empires. You did your best. But it's been fifteen hundred years. It's time for something new."

Perhaps she was right. He had preserved Creation for another Age. Chejop lifted a mangled hand to her face. "I'm sorry," he said, "that I never had the chance to teach you Sidereal martial arts."

"I have time," she said gently.

"Yes," he agreed. "But I truly wanted...to watch you learn." She would need to master a Celestial art first. Throne Shadow? No. Let the Gold Star enjoy an irony.

With his last breath, he released Wood Dragon style into her heart.

*****

Ayesha Ura bowed herself low. "Leviathan. Welcome back to Heaven. I regret many things, not least that we discounted the Lunars. But in the end our goals are compatible, I should think."

"Hmm." Leviathan tilted his great head. "Perhaps. Let us see. Where are the profanations?"

"Shaia took them," Ayesha said. "Perhaps Lytek can cure them."

Leviathan growled deep in his throat. "You had best hope so. Still...I suppose their Exaltations were not first to be broken. You wish to bow, Ayesha?" She nodded. "Then bow yourself to Alexander Harris the Zenith, Admiral of Luthe."

Ayesha swallowed a deep breath of air. Alexander was a mere boy. So young. But then, she considered...older than the Age.

She bowed low.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story continues in "Welcome to the New Age".

**Author's Note:**

> The story continues in "Welcome to the New Age.


End file.
